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Name: Rowe, Leslie
Current Position: Previous Ambassador
Leslie V. Rowe, a resident of Washington, received a Bachelor’s in Arts from Washington State University. She later earned a Master’s in Arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1983 and a Master’s in Education from Northeastern University. In addition, she attended Sorbonne University in Paris. In Germany, she was a Fulbright scholar.
She began her career as director of the International Office at Tufts University and has been a foreign language teacher at high schools. She speaks English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
In 1983, she became a member of the Foreign Service and later became member of the Senior Foreign Service.
From 1984 to 1986, she worked as a consular officer in Sao Paulo, Brazil and as Deputy Consul General at the US Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica two years later. In 1988, she served as a Principal Officer of the US Consulate in Recife, Brazil.
She was Country Desk Officer for Chile in 1992; and one year later, she was positioned in the Human Resources Office. From 1994 to 1996, she was the Director of the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues.
In 1996, she became the Consul General in Lisbon, Portugal. Four years later, she was positioned as a Consul General in Bangkok, Thailand.
In 2003, Rowe served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya . Since 2006, Rowe, a career diplomat, has been the US Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
Rowe was finally nominated to be the US Ambassador to Mozambique on September 12, 2009 and began her term on January 1, 2010.