Jeffrey Davidow

Jeffrey Davidow is President of the Institute of the Americas and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela and Mexico. Davidow spent 34 years in the Foreign Service, focusing much of his efforts on improving relations with Latin America. He served in increasingly senior positions in U.S. embassies in Guatemala, Chile, and Venezuela, returning later as ambassador from l993-1996. From 1996 to 1998, he was the State Department’s chief policy maker for the hemisphere, serving in the position of Assistant Secretary of State. Appointed ambassador to Mexico by President Clinton, Davidow was asked to remain in his post by President Bush. Davidow retired with the rank of Career Ambassador.

After leaving Mexico in 2002, Davidow became a Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the David Rockefeller center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and wrote a book on U.S.-Mexican relations titled, The U.S. and Mexico: The Bear and the Porcupine. He was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Massachusetts. Davidow earned his M.A. at the University of Minnesota and did postgraduate work in India on a Fulbright travel grant.