A U.S. Foreign Service officer from 2010 to 2021, John’s experience includes leadership to mitigate social challenges; policy analysis; and public affairs. His U.S. State Department multi-year diplomatic postings were in the Middle East and South America. He also served in a number of domestic assignments in Washington, D.C., including as the Senior Regional Policy Advisor covering the entire Western Hemisphere for the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues; Senior Communications Advisor in the Global Community Liaison Office; Spokesperson for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and was the Public Affairs Officer for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.John’s diplomatic career came after thirty years as a corporate communications manager and advertising creative director in Miami and Atlanta. He also served for four years in the U.S. Army Reserves in a Military Intelligence unit, was a language school director in Venezuela, and a magazine photojournalist in Mexico and Guatemala. He has held numerous community organization and volunteer posts, including founder and Executive Director of a humanitarian NGO in Haiti during the year following their 2010 earthquake, and is on boards of advisors for humanitarian and healthcare groups based in Ukraine, Tanzania, and India.A native of New York City, John moved as a young teenager with his family to Coral Gables, Florida. Thereafter, he studied Fine Arts, International Affairs, and Arabic at Ohio University and Harvard University, and Portuguese and Arabic at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. In 2021, he retired from the Foreign Service and moved with his family to central Florida, where he is a human rights activist and continues working on and exhibiting his humanitarian and social documentary fine arts photography.