Troy Fitrell

Troy Fitrell is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. He is also the CEO of SAGINT International, a financial technology firm that uses asset tokenization to bring traceability and transparency to real-world markets, including critical mineral supply chains. Additionally, he is a director of Ivanhoe Atlantic and senior advisor on international cooperation to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

A retired senior foreign service officer, Ambassador Fitrell spent more than thirty years at the US Department of State. He most recently served as acting assistant secretary for African Affairs and previously as US ambassador to the Republic of Guinea, where he led a seven-agency mission through political transition and crisis. He also served as deputy chief of mission in Addis Ababa, director for West African affairs, and chargé d’affaires in Mauritius.

In leading the Bureau of African Affairs, he developed and launched the first continent-wide US commercial diplomacy strategy for Africa, which continues to shape US trade and investment engagement. He also led high-level peace negotiations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His work has earned the Presidential Rank Award, the Charles Cobb Award for Excellence in Commercial Promotion, and the Secretary of State’s Award for Excellence in Labor Diplomacy. Ambassador Fitrell advises governments, boards, and investors on critical minerals, energy and infrastructure partnerships, and political-risk navigation, helping translate diplomatic access into market entry and durable bilateral ties. He speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish.