President Biden Announces His Intent to Nominate Four Individuals to Serve as Ambassadors

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following four individuals to serve as U.S. ambassadors:

• Denise Campbell Bauer, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the French Republic and to the Principality of Monaco
• Peter D. Haas, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to People’s Republic of Bangladesh
• Eric M. Garcetti, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of India
• Bernadette M. Meehan, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Chile

Denise Campbell Bauer, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the French Republic and to the Principality of Monaco

Denise Campbell Bauer is an experienced diplomat, non-profit leader, and advocate for women’s voices in politics and policy. She served as the United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium from August 2013 until January 2017, where she led one of the largest embassies in Europe and earned a reputation for her collaborative leadership style, high ethics standards, and crisis management skills.  In that role, she focused on building transatlantic security partnerships and expanding international trade. 

Bauer began her career in Los Angeles, where she worked as a journalist for two internationally respected television networks. She went on to serve in leadership roles for a number of non-profits. 

In 2019, Bauer became the Executive Director of Women for Biden, a nationwide network of women that organized and mobilized to elect President Biden. In 2012, she served in a similar role for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, while also chairing the Women’s Leadership Forum for the Democratic National Committee. Upon returning from Brussels in 2017, she re-engaged in politics, focusing on supporting women running for office for the first time. 

Bauer received a B.A. in Political Science from Occidental College. She speaks French.

Peter D. Haas, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to People’s Republic of Bangladesh

Peter D. Haas, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as Acting Assistant Secretary of State and concurrently as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, for Economic and Business Affairs for the Department of State. Previously, Haas was Senior Advisor/Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade Policy and Negotiations for the State Department and prior to that was the Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, France. Over his career he has served in positions across five geographic bureaus of the State Department including as Consul General of the U.S. Consulate General Mumbai, India. 

Haas holds a BA in International Studies and German from Illinois Wesleyan University. He attended the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar, where he earned MSc (Econ) degrees in both the Politics of the World Economy and Comparative Government. He is the recipient of the James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence and the Cordell Hull Award for Economic Achievement by Senior Officers.  His foreign languages are French and German.

Eric M. Garcetti, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of India

Eric M. Garcetti has been the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles since 2013, following 12 years as a member of the City Council, including six as Council President.  As Mayor, Garcetti oversees the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere, the largest municipal utility in the country, and one of the busiest airports in the world.  He led LA’s successful bid to return the summer Olympic Games to American soil for the first time in three decades.  He currently chairs LA Metro, the country’s second-busiest transit agency, which is building or extending 15 new transit lines, and shifting to an all-electric fleet.

Garcetti co-founded Climate Mayors and led more than 400 U.S. mayors to adopt the Paris Climate agreement.  He is the current Chair of C40 Cities – a network of 97 of the world’s biggest cities taking bold climate action and has led the organization’s engagement and expansion in India as well as C40’s global response to the COVID pandemic through the sharing of best practices and resources.

During 12 years as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve Component, Garcetti served under the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet and the Defense Intelligence Agency, retiring in 2017 as a Lieutenant.  A Rhodes Scholar, he studied at Queen’s College, Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Garcetti was selected as an inaugural Asia 21 Fellow of the Asia Society, and taught at Occidental College’s Department of Diplomacy and World Affairs, as well as at the University of Southern California’s School of International Relations.  He has lived and conducted field work on nationalism, ethnicity, and human rights in Southeast Asia and Northeast Africa.  He is the founding Chair of the Latino Alliance of Mayors at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, serves on the Board of National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, and speaks fluent Spanish. Garcetti earned a B.A. and M.A. at Columbia University, where he was a John Jay Scholar.

Bernadette M. Meehan, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Chile

Bernadette Meehan currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Global Programs for the Obama Foundation, where she served previously as Chief International Officer and Executive Director of International Programs.  Prior to joining the Obama Foundation, Ms. Meehan was a career Foreign Service Officer for over a decade.  During her time with the State Department, she was detailed to work in multiple positions at the National Security Council, including as a Senior Advisor, as Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council Spokesperson, and earlier, as Director for Strategic Communications.  Among her other assignments, Ms. Meehan served as Special Assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Dean and Virginia Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy; Special Assistant in the State Department’s Executive Secretariat; Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate General Dubai, United Arab Emirates; both Consular Officer and Special Assistant to the Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq; and Consular Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. 

Ms. Meehan earned her B.A. from Boston College.  Her civic leadership includes service on the Board of Advisors at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and the Advisory Council of Hostage US.  She speaks Spanish and Arabic.

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