Culinary Diplomacy with Ambassador Ertharin Cousin

This is a Special Correspondent Episode and part of Rebecca Picard’s #CulinaryDiplomacy series.

“Develop communication skills, develop the skills of organizing, leadership, teambuilding {etc] that allow for project management… to support outcomes, not outputs.”

http://media.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/content.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/Rebecca_Picard_guest_ep_3.m4a

Ambassador ERTHARIN COUSIN is a distinguished fellow of global agriculture at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  She served as executive director of the World Food Programme 2012-2017, leading the world’s largest humanitarian organization with 14,000 staff serving 80 million vulnerable people across 75 countries.

In 2009, Cousin was nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as the US ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome. In this role Cousin served as the US representative for all food, agriculture, and nutrition-related issues. Cousin regularly represented US interest in global leader discussions, including prime ministers, foreign and agriculture ministers, academics and business executives, regarding humanitarian and development activities.  Cousin helped identify and catalyze US government investment in food security and nutrition activities supported by the USAID Feed the Future program.  Cousin convened foreign media tours resulting in millions of conventional as well social media impressions.

A Chicago native, Cousin is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago; the University of Georgia Law School, and the University of Chicago Executive Management Finance for Non-Financial Executives program. Cousin has received honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the globe.  She has been listed numerous times on the Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women” list, as the Fortune “Most Powerful Woman in Food and Drink,” on TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” list, and as one of the “500 Most Powerful People on the Planet” by Foreign Policy magazine.