Ambassador (ret.) Jo Ellen Powell serves as Executive Director of the Una Chapman Cox Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting the U.S. Foreign Service. A former career Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Powell previously served as Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Resources, and Consul General in Frankfurt, Germany. Following her retirement in 2017, she continued to support the Foreign Service and the Department of State, mentoring Ambassadorial and Deputy Chief of Mission/Principal Officer seminars as well as the Senior Executive Training seminar at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. She has been with the Una Chapman Cox Foundation since 2019, and as Executive Director since February 2022.

Ambassador Powell’s other Foreign Service assignments include Amman, Jordan, the Department of State’s Operations Center, Beirut, Lebanon, Rome, Italy, Paris, France, Canberra, Australia, the Executive Secretariat, and Executive Director of the Western Hemisphere Affairs bureau. Among many other Department of State awards, in 2005 she was a recipient of the Department’s Luther Replogle Award for Management Improvement. Her languages are French, Italian, German, and some Arabic.

Ambassador Powell has been a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy since 2015. She is the author of the Academy’s 2022 report, “Bringing America’s Multilateral Diplomacy into the 21st Century” and a co-author of the Academy’s 2022 report “Blueprints for a More Modern U.S. Diplomatic Service.” Her husband Stephen Engelken is also a retired senior Foreign Service Officer.