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Hon. Bruce S. Gelb

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Bruce S. Gelb is the President of the Council of American Ambassadors. He is currently a senior consultant to Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

Prior to this, Ambassador Gelb was appointed Commissioner for the United Nations, Consular Corps, and International Business by New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, serving from 1994 to 1997. In this capacity, he was responsible for the strategy and implementation of actions to bring international businesses to New York City and for the retention of resident foreign companies, the United Nations, and its agencies.

Before his work as a Commissioner for New York City, he served in the George H.W. Bush administration as the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium (1991-1993), Director of the U.S. Information Agency (1989-1991), and a member of the Arts and Humanities Committee. Prior to his service in government, he was Vice Chairman of the Board of Bristol-Myers Company, now Bristol-Myers Squibb, with worldwide responsibility for the company’s consumer products and health care businesses. Bruce has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is also a former Trustee of Howard University and a past Board member of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Bruce is a Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club, a Life Trustee of Choate Rosemary Hall, a Board member of the United Nations Development Corporation, a Regent of the Center for Security Policy, a member of the Advisory Board of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and a member of the Board of the National Organization on Disability. In February 2003, Ambassador Gelb was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He was also President of the Wilson Council until 2006.

Ambassador Gelb was born in New York City. After service in the U.S. Navy, he received his B.A. degree in 1950 from Yale University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1953. He holds an honorary Ph.D. from Monterey Institute of International Studies.

(Profile posted Nov. 2006.)