RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE 
President & CEO, Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Richard Holbrooke is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC). He assumed this role in June 2001, to lead GBC in mobilizing the business sector.

In addition to his leadership at GBC, Richard Holbrooke is the founding Chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, a new center for U.S.- German cultural exchange, the Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC, a leading private equity firm, and Vice Chairman of the Asia Society. He also serves as a Board Member of American International Group (AIG), The Coca-Cola Company, the Museum of Natural History, the National Endowment for Democracy, Human Genome Sciences and Refugees International.

Richard Holbrooke has played a central role in the development of U.S. policy toward the United Nations, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East and humanitarian crisis issues with refugee populations and HIV/AIDS. He most recently served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where he was also a member of President Clinton's cabinet. From 1994-96 he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, where he most notably lead negotiations for the historic Dayton Peace Accords (1995) that ended the war in Bosnia. In 1977, President Carter appointed him Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a post during which he established full diplomatic relations with China.

He began his career as a Foreign Service Officer immediately after graduating from Brown University in 1962, where he held assignments in Vietnam and the White House. He was assigned as a Peace Corps director in Morocco in 1970, and in 1972 he left the Foreign Service to become Managing Editor of the quarterly magazine, Foreign Policy.

Ambassador Holbrooke has been very active in the non-profit arena, especially in the area of refugee assistance. He was chairman of Refugees International from 1996 to1999 and was twice a member of the board of the International Rescue Committee. Richard Holbrooke is also an experienced businessman having held senior positions at two leading Wall Street firms, Credit Suisse First Boston (Vice Chairman) and Lehman Brothers (Managing Director).