Ambassador Sam Brownback

Chairman, National Committee for Religious Freedom

Sam Brownback has spent decades in senior public service advancing human dignity, democratic values, and freedom of religion around the world. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit and Chairman of the National Committee for Religious Freedom, leading global efforts to protect religious liberty and counter repression. 

From 2018 to 2021, Brownback served as United States Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, where he worked across regions and faith communities to confront religious persecution and advocate for the rights of believers facing state repression. His diplomatic service built on a long legislative record focused on freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. 

Previously, Brownback represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1996 to 2011. During his tenure, he was a principal architect of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, landmark legislation that institutionalized U.S. advocacy for religious liberty worldwide, and the author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the first comprehensive federal law to criminalize human trafficking and expand protections for victims. 

Earlier in his career, Brownback served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Kansas’s Second Congressional District and as Secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, becoming the youngest person to hold that office. Honoring a term limits pledge, he left the Senate and ran for Kansas governor in 2010. He was inaugurated in 2011 as the 46th Governor of Kansas and was re-elected in 2014 before returning to national and international service. He is one of only six individuals in American history to have served in all four roles: congressman, senator, governor, and ambassador. 

A native of Garnett, Kansas, Brownback was raised on his family’s Linn County farm. He earned his undergraduate degree from Kansas State University, where he served as student body president, and his law degree from the University of Kansas. He and his wife, Mary, have five children and ten grandchildren.