Marcie B. Ries is a retired Ambassador with more than thirty-five years of diplomatic experience in Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East.  She is a three-time Chief of Mission, serving as Head of the U.S. Mission in Kosovo (2003-2004), United States Ambassador to Albania (2004-2007) and, most recently (2012-2015), as United States Ambassador to Bulgaria.

She was the Senior State Department Representative on the negotiating team for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States and Russia, which was signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedyev in Prague in April, 2010. From 2008-2009, she was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR). In that capacity, she had responsibility for offices dealing with the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), the European Union (EU) and Western Europe, as well as strategic planning and personnel.  She has also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Arms Control and Verification (2014). From 2007-2008, during the period known as “the surge,” Ambassador Ries was Minister-Counselor for Political-Military Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq. She was Director of the State Department’s Office of United Nations Political Affairs for two years before and after 9/11.

Ambassador Ries currently serves on the Boards of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the American College of Sofia, Bulgaria and speaks frequently on leadership and management and American diplomacy.  As a Senior Advisor in the Leadership and Management School of the Foreign Service Institute, she served as a Senior Mentor to multiple classes of Ambassadors, Deputy Chiefs of Mission and senior officers (2017-2019). From 2020-2021 she was a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she co-authored the report entitled “A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century.”  She currently serves as a Co-chair of the American Diplomacy Project Phase 2.