Pamela Spratlen

Pamela Leora Spratlen is a diplomat, foreign policy expert, speaker and leader who spent nearly 30 years in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State. Her leadership experience included 10 years in Central Asia, of which she served eight as U.S. Ambassador, first to Kyrgyzstan (2011-14) and then to Uzbekistan (2015-18).  She also served as Deputy Chief of Mission (Deputy to the Ambassador) in Kazakhstan (2009-11) and in Washington as the Country Director/acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia (2006-07). In Kazakhstan, she oversaw the U.S. embassy’s organization of Secretary Clinton’s participation in a major summit. She advised the country’s leaders as Kyrgyzstan held its first peaceful transfer of power in a national election. Her oversight helped sustain the Peace Corps in country. Her leadership helped usher in a “new era of bilateral relations” with Uzbekistan after the arrival of a reform-oriented president in 2016.  This included a successful White House visit, the first in 10 years. In the run up to the visit, she worked with the rest of the U.S. government to restore long-frozen security assistance. At her urging, the government accepted international help to begin eliminating forced labor in its main export crop, cotton.  She also persuaded the authorities to release many prisoners of conscience and reduce religious repression.

Ambassador Spratlen’s senior Washington assignments include:  Senior Advisor in the Office of the Inspector General (2018-19); Director of Western European Affairs (2008-09), Director of Central Asian Affairs and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary (2006-08); Special Assistant to the Counselor to the Secretary of State (2005-06).  In her early and mid-career with State she served in Guatemala City, Paris, Moscow, Vladivostok, Honolulu and Washington (1990-2005).  She began her career as a VISTA volunteer in California, where she worked on a program to address the lack of low-income housing.  She served for over eight years on the professional staffs of the Joint Legislative Budget (1981-84) and Ways and Means (1985-89) Committees of the California Legislature, where she focused higher education.  

Ambassador Spratlen received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College (1976) and holds master’s degrees from the Army War College (2006, distance) and The Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley (1981).  Ambassador Spratlen received the Graduate of the Year award from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Public Policy (2016), numerous State Department awards and the highest civilian award from the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan.  She speaks Russian, French and Spanish. Ambassador Spratlen was born in Ohio and raised on the West Coast in Washington state and California.