Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley

Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Counselor, joined the Foreign Service in 1985 and served as Consul in Baghdad, before being posted to Jakarta and Cairo. She then served as Special Assistant for Middle Eastern and African Affairs to Deputy, and later Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. After a year of advanced Arabic, she served as Political Officer at the Embassy in Tel Aviv with responsibility for the Gaza Strip. Before her current posting as Director for the Office of Egypt and the Levant, she was Chairwoman for Middle East Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute --the premier training facility for U.S. Diplomats—and served as Consul General in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Policy Advisor to the Director of the Near East – South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the Department of Defense, Senior Advisor for Middle Eastern Affairs at USUN, Director for Near East South Asian Affairs with responsibility for the Arabian Peninsula at the National Security Council of the White House and Director for Legislative Affairs, also at the NSC. Prior to that, she was awarded a Pearson fellowship and worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the Ranking Member, Senator Joseph Biden.

Ms. Abercrombie-Winstanley is the recipient of Performance Pay, Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards, including “For acts of courage during an attack on the U.S. Consulate General, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on December 6, 20004 by Al Qa’eda terrorists.”

Ms. Abercrombie Winstanley has a Bachelors degree from George Washington University and a Masters degree from Johns Hopkins University and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and International Careers Advancement Association. She is married and has two children.