During International Women’s Day, the United Nations focuses on fulfilling promises regarding the maternal health, equality, empowerment, education, and safety of women worldwide. There is perhaps no one better suited to help the UN sharpen this focus than U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice.
A Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University, Rice was a foreign policy wunderkind. Before age 30, she joined President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council in 1993, eventually serving as one of the youngest assistant secretaries of state under her mentor Madeleine Albright. She is the first African American woman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and one of President Obama’s most experienced and revered foreign-policy advisers.
With a reputation for being charming, witty and funny in person, Rice is known for being candid and persuasive at the United Nations. In the Security Council, her unique blend of direct but effective diplomacy has successfully facilitated resolutions, delivering harsh sanctions against North Korea and Iran and military intervention in Libya. Her outspokenness even extends to Twitter, where she has been known to call out leaders and raise humanitarian concerns.
She responded by email to interview questions posed by The InterDependent.