Ambassador (retired) Jonathan Cohen

Ambassador (retired) Jonathan R. Cohen is a strategic advisor and international consultant who served as a US diplomat for over thirty-five years, including as Ambassador to Egypt and the United Nations; as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia covering Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus; as Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad and Nicosia; and as Acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Paris. He also had diplomatic postings in Stockholm, Rome, Ankara, Vienna (OSCE), Jerusalem, and Bangkok, on the State Department NATO and OSCE Desks and in the Office of the Secretary of State. His London-based company, JoCo Advisors Ltd, advises companies operating in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East across a range of sectors including fintech, mining, energy, infrastructure, IT/data/Comms and geopolitics and political risk. Amb. Cohen is a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. He is the recipient of a Presidential Rank Award for sustained superior accomplishment in foreign policy, the State Department’s Charles Cobb Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development and Promotion, the State Department’s James Clement Dunn Award for Excellence, a Distinguished Honor Award, multiple Superior Honor Awards and the Diwali Foundation’s Power of One Award. Born in Palo Alto, California in 1964, Ambassador Cohen grew up there and in Laguna Beach, California. He graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in politics and a certificate in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 1985 and attended Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service Program in 1986. He speaks French, Swedish, and Italian as well as some Hebrew, Arabic and Thai.