REPORT FOR THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of
Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service
Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Uganda
CANDIDATE: William W. Popp
William Popp, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as the American Ambassador to the Republic of Guatemala. Previously, Ambassador Popp was Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil where he was also the Charge d’affaires a.i. between November 2018 – March 2020. Before that he served first as the Political Counselor and then as the Acting Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Ambassador Popp was also the Director of the Office of Regional Economic Policy and Summit Coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the State Department. His considerable experience in senior leadership positions coupled with his past work in east Africa, makes him a well qualified candidate to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Uganda.
Ambassador Popp was selected for Senior Leadership Training and earned a Master of Sciences degree in National Security Strategy at the National War College in Washington, D.C. from 2012 – 2013. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Principal Officer and then Acting Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He also served as the Deputy Economic Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. He worked as the Senior Brazil Desk Officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, as a Staff Assistant in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, and served in overseas diplomatic positions at the U.S. Embassies in Luanda, Angola, and Managua, Nicaragua.
Ambassador Popp earned his bachelor’s degree from Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri and a master’s degree from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of numerous State Department awards and his foreign languages are Spanish and Portuguese.