Patricia de Stacy Harrison Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State

As an entrepreneur, author and political leader, Patricia de Stacy Harrison has over 20 years of experience in communication strategy, coalition, and constituency building. She is the author of A Seat At The Table and America's New Women Entrepreneurs. As founder and President of the National Women's Economic Alliance, she worked to identify women and minorities for leadership roles in business and politics. Through The Decade for Democracy, a mentoring exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration, Ms. Harrison worked with women entrepreneurs in emerging democracies, to help them achieve within their new free enterprise systems.

Through U.S. Department of State-sponsored international education and exchange programs, Ms. Harrison has focused on reaching wider, more diverse publics with an emphasis on youth. She has created "Partnerships for Learning" (P4L), a global initiative providing young people with enhanced education and opportunity. Within a range of P4L programs are the first official U.S. high school exchanges with the Arab and Muslim world. The P4L CultureConnect program sends accomplished American men and women abroad to engage young people through master classes and dialogue. She has directed the historic resumption of the Fulbright Program in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy during the Iraq conflict, Ms. Harrison also collaborated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to bring the Iraq National Symphony Orchestra to Washington, and she has initiated a comprehensive renewal of the Baghdad National Museum.

In 2000, she served as a Visiting Fellow, Institute of Public Service, The Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania. In 1992, she was a Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Ms. Harrison is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 1999 Global Women's Leadership Award; 1999 New York Black Republican Council's Woman of the Year Award; 1998 Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award; 1988 Entrepreneur of the Year/Arthur Young Company and Venture Magazine; 1989 Distinguished Woman Award, Northwood Institute; and 1997 Ladies Home Journal "50 Most Influential Women in Politics."

She is a former member of the Executive Committee, National Italian American Foundation; a former Thomas Colloquium Free Enterprise Chair Guest Lecturer at Youngstown State University in Ohio; and a former Chairman of the Board, Guest Services, Inc. Ms. Harrison, a native of Brooklyn, New York, is a graduate of American University.