A 30-year veteran of the State Department, Alejandro D. Wolff has returned to Chile as U.S. ambassador following his first tour to the South American country earlier in his career. He began his term on September 10, 2010.

 

Wolff is an alumnus of UCLA, having graduated magna cum laude in 1978. The next year he joined the Foreign Service.

 

His assignments in Washington have included tours on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (1981-1982); in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs (1988-1989); in the Office of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs (1989-1991); as deputy executive secretary of the State Department (1996-1998); and as the executive assistant to Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell (1998-2001).

 

Wolff’s overseas assignments have been in Algeria, Morocco, Chile, Cyprus and France, where he was deputy chief of mission from 2001-2005. He also was posted to the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. From 1991 to1994, Wolff headed the political section of the U.S. embassy in Chile.

 

His most recent position was deputy permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations (2005-2010). He assumed the duties of ambassador for five months following the resignation of John Bolton in December 2006 and until the appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad.

 

Wolff speaks French and Spanish. He and his wife, Alexandra, have two sons.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Official Biography (State Department)