Deneyse A. Kirkpatrick

Deneyse Kirkpatrick is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and founder and chief executive officer of Kirkpatrick Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm focused on international affairs, higher education, workforce development, and geostrategic partnerships. 

Most recently, Kirkpatrick served as president and chief executive officer of the Texas International Education Consortium, a state-based network of public and private higher education institutions advancing campus internationalization. She served for two decades with the US Department of State as a foreign service officer in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. She was appointed as the highest-ranking US official to Guinea-Bissau. Kirkpatrick also served as senior advisor to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy and has led initiatives supporting international education, commercial diplomacy, and counterterrorism.

Kirkpatrick is the recipient of the US Civilian Army Achievement Award and the Public Diplomacy Association of America Award. She is on the board of visitors at Howard University, a member of The New Philadelphia Association, and a contributor to the Meridian International Center. She is a native of Prairie View, Texas, holds a doctor of international affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a MA in Latin American studies from Georgetown University, a BA from Howard University in communication, and certificates from the University of Southern California (in public diplomacy) and the Harvard Business School Executive Leadership Program. She is the author of several US State Department reports including Public Diplomacy: Telling America’s Story to the World and has published at the Atlantic Council.