Ambassador Mitchell Reiss

Ambassador Mitchell Reiss is an international consultant on geopolitical risk, institutional turnarounds, and non-profit leadership. He is the former President and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and former President of Washington College. He served as Director of the Office of Policy Planning in the State Department from 2003–05 and as President George W. Bush’s Special Envoy for the Northern Ireland Peace Process from 2003–07, when he was cited for ‘exceptionally distinguished service’ and awarded the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Award for Public Service. He has served as a consultant to Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories and advisor to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the US Arms Control & Disarmament Agency.

Since 2016, he has served as the UK Government’s Representative to the Independent Reporting Commission, which is charged with helping end paramilitary activities in Northern Ireland.

From 1995 to 1999, he spent four years negotiating with North Korea on behalf of the Korean Peninsula Energy Corporation (KEDO), which was a multinational organisation (US, South Korea, Japan, and the EU) dedicated to ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes. He was also Dean and Vice Provost at the College of William & Mary, where he held joint appointments in both the Law School and Government Department.

He has authored three books, contributed to seventeen volumes, and written over 100 articles on international and regional security issues. He has testified numerous times before the Senate and House of Representatives and Parliament. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford University, a J.D. from Columbia Law School, a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and a B.A. from Williams College.