Colleen Graffy

Biography

Colleen Graffy is Chair of SEAL, the Society of English and American Lawyers, and is Associate Professor and Director of Global Programs at Pepperdine Univerity’s London campus. A Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, she specialises in public diplomacy and is a regular commentator in the media.

As the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy under George W Bush Colleen travelled to over 40 countries, working with embassies to communicate US policy, values and culture around the world. She created the first ever ‘media hub’ for the US government, with radio and TV facilities in Brussels, and was the first high-level US government official to use Twitter and other social media (an initially controversial move now lauded as forward-thinking).

In speeches Colleen reveals what business can learn from government, international diplomacy, and the parallels between the two. She discusses how governments communicate (successfully and unsuccessfully) with people in their own and other countries, social media, negotiation and crisis management. Colleen also writes and commentates extensively on the US and its foreign policy and geopolitics more widely.