President Obama nominated career diplomat William E. Todd as the next ambassador to Cambodia on December 1, 2011, and the Senate is expected to act on the nomination in the coming months.

 

Born circa 1962, Todd earned a B.S. at Longwood College (now Longwood University) circa 1984 and joined the Foreign Service shortly thereafter. He has been a career member of the Senior Executive Service for more than 10 years. Todd has held several senior positions within the US government, including executive director of the Bureau of Resource Management in the State Department; director of the Office of Security and Management in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Transportation; and director of planning and resource management for the US and Foreign Commercial Service in the Department of Commerce.

 

Todd worked in the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) for a little more than four years starting in 2002, serving as principal deputy assistant secretary (PDAS), deputy assistant secretary for International Civilian Police and Rule of Law Programs and for the Office of Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, as well as executive director and controller. As PDAS, Todd managed more than 4,000 employees and contractors in more than 75 theatres of operation, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia. As INL’s executive director/controller, he managed about one-sixth of the State Department’s budget (more than $3.5 billion) and one-fourth of the department’s assets.

 

Upon leaving INL, Todd served as deputy inspector general of the State Department from June 2006 to January 2008, when he became acting inspector general. In both capacities, he directed all Office of Inspector General activities, domestically and abroad, and international broadcasting operations in 65 broadcast languages. In March 2008 he headed the investigation into the security breach in which the passport files of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were accessed without authorization.

 

Todd was assigned his first ambassadorship in June 2008, as the U.S. Ambassador to Brunei, where he served two years before taking the “hardship” post of coordinating director of Development and Economic Affairs at the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, from June 2010 to June 2011.

 

Todd is a certified public accountant licensed in the state of Virginia. He and his wife, Ann Buckingham Todd, have four children.

-Matt Bewig