Joining the Foreign Service soon after graduating Oxford, he was almost immediately sent abroad, serving as Vice Consul in Mexico from 1981 to 1983, Vice Consul in Portugal from 1983 to 1984, and Political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Portugal from 1984 to 1985. Returning to the U.S. in 1986, Dell served in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs from 1986 to 1989 and as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for International Security Affairs from 1989 to 1991. Sent back overseas in 1991, Dell served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Mozambique from 1991 to 1994, and was then promoted to Deputy Director of the Office of Regional Political Affairs and the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs from 1994 to 1996. 

 

Since 1996, he has taken a string of foreign assignments, including Deputy Chief of Mission in Bulgaria from 1997 to 2000, Chief of Mission in Kosovo from 2000 to 2001, Ambassador to Angola from 2001 to 2004, Ambassador to Zimbabwe from 2004 to 2007, and Deputy Chief of Mission in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2009. Dell’s tenure in Zimbabwe was particularly stormy, coinciding as it did with a sharply worsening humanitarian and human rights situation. The remarkably corrupt government of President Robert Mugabe engaged in a violent crackdown on its critics; when Dell publicly criticized the violence and the endemic corruption, Mugabe told Dell to “go to hell.” Dell later left Zimbabwe, disappointed that Mugabe remained in power.

 

Dell is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and Bulgarian.   He married the former Theodora Galabora in 2006. They have two children from previous marriages.