Ambassador Jendayi Frazer is the Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution Stanford University, adjunct senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the president and chief executive officer of 50 Ventures, a private consulting and investment company that seeks to elevate Africa’s global standing by investing in governance, education, enterprise, and stability. Previously she served as the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 2005 to 2009. She was special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council from 2001 until her swearing-in as the first woman US ambassador to South Africa in 2004. She previously served in government from 1998 to 1999 as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, first at the Pentagon and then as director for African affairs at the National Security Council, working on Central and East Africa.

She was a Distinguished Public Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University from 2009 to 2014, where she was on the faculty of Heinz College’s School of Public Policy and Management.  She was also an Assistant Professor at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver.  Her research focuses on strengthening regional security cooperation and economic and political integration in Africa. The author of and contributor to a number of articles, journals, and books, she is the co-editor of Preventing Electoral Violence in Africa (2011).

Ambassador Frazer received her BA in political science (with honors) and African and Afro-American studies (with distinction), MAs in international policy studies and international development education, and PhD in political science, all from Stanford University.