Greg Starr is a retired senior United States Foreign Service Officer with a specialized career in the field of diplomatic security.  He served primarily at the US Department of State (33 years), ultimately serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security (2013-2017).  In this position he was the senior officer in the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, and advisor for security and law enforcement matters to the Secretary of State. He testified multiple times before Senate and Congressional Committees on the Benghazi incident and developed policy and procedures to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

From 2009 to 2013 Mr. Starr served as Under Secretary General for Safety and Security at the United Nations, reporting to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He was the senior official of the UN Security Management System, overseeing the formulation of security policies and the implementation of programs to ensure the operations of UN political, humanitarian, and relief activities were conducted in as secure an environment as possible around the globe.

During his career he also served as DS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Countermeasure, and then Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of the Diplomatic Security Service, leading a force of Special Agents, Diplomatic Couriers, Security Engineering Officers, Security Technical Specialists, General Service staff, and other specialists. (March 2007 – May 2009)

Mr. Starr served in multiple domestic and foreign assignments, including tours abroad as a Regional Security Officer in Israel, Tunisia, Senegal, and Kinshasa, Zaire (presently the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

After a distinguished career of 37 years in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State, Ambassador Gail Dennise Mathieu continues to use her executive leadership, program and resource management, and policy acumen to focus on international diplomacy.  Most recently she was the former President and CEO of The Bridges Institute, a non-governmental organization.  Prior to retirement, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands (2013-2015); Foreign Policy Advisor to the U.S. Transportation Command (2010-2013); and Ambassador to Namibia (2007-2010) and to Niger (2002-2005).

Ms. Mathieu is a graduate of Antioch College and Rutgers University School of Law.  She speaks French and Spanish and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award.

Roxanne Cabral is the Senior Vice President at the National Defense University. Before that, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands from February 2020 to March 2023. Her most recent Washington assignment was as the Director of the Office of Policy, Planning and Resources for the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2015-2017. Previous overseas assignments include Panama, China, Taiwan, Albania, Mexico City, and Ukraine. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Jeffrey Feltman, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, was the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs (2012-2018).  Previously, in the U.S. Foreign Service, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and ambassador to Lebanon.  Other assignments included Baghdad, Erbil, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Amman, Budapest, and Port-au-Prince.  He is on the governing boards of the Middle East Institute, American Academy of Diplomacy, and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and on the advisory boards of the European Institute of Peace, Dialogue Advisory Group, and Berghof Foundation.

Ms. Smith-Wilson is currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics & Law Enforcement Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.  Previously she was the Deputy Director of the Foreign Service Institute.  Other assignments include Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Deputy Director of the State Department’s Operations Center, and Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassies in Madrid and Panama.  She holds master’s degrees from the National War College and The George Washington University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Duke University.

Ambassador Arnold Chacon retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2022. He currently serves as Secretary of Administration and Finance at the Organization of American States. Over the course of his career at the State Department, he represented the United States abroad in nine countries, including as Chief of Mission in Guatemala, and served as Director General of the Foreign Service and Deputy Executive Secretary of the Executive Secretariat. Ambassador Chacon is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. 

Ambassador Carol Z. Perez retired from the Foreign Service in 2022.  She served in multiple senior leadership roles including Director General of the Foreign Service, Acting Under Secretary for Management, Ambassador to Chile, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Other assignments include Principal Officer in Milan, Italy and Barcelona Spain, and as a Deputy Executive Secretary supporting Secretaries Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

She currently serves as chairwoman of the board of the American Foreign Service Protective Association and on the board of the Senior Living Foundation.  She is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Ambassador (ret.) Yael Lempert is the Middle East Institute’s Vice President for Outreach. She served for over 27 years as an American diplomat, including as the US Ambassador to Jordan from 2023 to 2025. Other previous positions include Acting Assistant Secretary of State and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs (2021-2023), Chargé d’Affaires at the US Embassy in London (2021), and Deputy Chief of Mission in London (2019-2020). Other overseas assignments include Jerusalem, Tripoli, Cairo, Baghdad and Shanghai.

Lempert served on the National Security Council staff of three presidents, including as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Levant, Israel, and Egypt from 2014 to 2017. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.