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 Nicaragua
CANDIDATE: Hugo F. Rodriguez, Jr.
Hugo F. Rodriguez, Jr., a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, is a Senior Advisor in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs focused on Central America and Mexico from 2019-2021, and in 2021 assumed the role of Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the bureau. Previously, Rodriguez served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Asunción, Paraguay and as the Embassy’s Charge d’Affaires a.i.. Earlier, he served as Consul General at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and as the Mission’s Acting Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs. He previously served as Deputy Director of the Office of Mexican Affairs, as Division Chief for the Western Hemisphere in the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Overseas Citizen Services office, and as a Watch Officer and Senior Watch Officer in the Executive Secretariat’s Operations Center. Other overseas assignments include U.S. Embassies in Lima, Peru and Rome, Italy. Rodriguez has devoted much of his career to Western Hemisphere Affairs. This substantive regional experience, coupled with his management experience and demonstrated ability to lead large interagency teams as well as policy-oriented offices, makes him a well-qualified candidate to be the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua.
A native of Pennsylvania, Rodriguez holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Hampden-Sydney College. The recipient of numerous State Department performance awards, including four Senior Foreign Service Performance Awards and five Superior Honor Awards, Rodriguez speaks Italian and Spanish.