Thank you for your continuing support. Help us celebrate 15 years of TNWAC’s global awareness programs this month.

The Tennessee World Affairs Council

This special event is free but please consider becoming a member or making a donation when you register. Thank you.

The conversation will be guided by the President of the American Council on Germany, Steven Sokol.

QUESTIONS?

Send your questions for Ambassador Kornblum to [email protected]

You can view Ambassador Kornblum’s January 17th and February 1st TNWAC conversations about the Ukraine crisis on our YouTube channel.

Ambassador John C. Kornblum has a long record of service in the United States and Europe both as a diplomat and as a businessman. He is recognized as an eminent expert on U.S.-European political and economic relations, in particular in Central and Eastern Europe. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1997 to 2001. Before that, he occupied a number of high-level diplomatic posts, including U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs, Special Envoy for the Dayton Peace Process, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Process), Deputy U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and U.S. minister and deputy commandant of forces in divided Berlin. From 2001 to 2009, he was chairman of Lazard Freres Germany. He currently serves as senior counsellor to the international law firm Noerr LLP and as a senior adviser to the worldwide consultancy Accenture. Mr. Kornblum has also served on a number of supervisory and advisory boards including those of Thyssen-Krupp, Technologies AG, Bayer AG, Russell Reynolds, and Motorola Europe. He is a member of the boards of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, the American Academy in Berlin, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and of numerous nonprofit organizations on both sides of the Atlantic. He received a B.A. from Michigan State University in 1964, and he has been the recipient of many awards, including a Knights Cross of the Order of Merit from Germany and an Order of Merit from Austria.

Steven E. Sokol is the President of the American Council on Germany. Previously, he served as President and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and prior to that he was the Vice President and Director of Programs at the American Council on Germany. Earlier in his career, Steve served as the Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, was the Head of the Project Management Department at the Bonn International Center for Conversion GmbH (BICC), and a Program Officer in the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He holds a Doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University as well as an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. He has also studied at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Freie Universität in Berlin.