Someone You Should Know About

Gayleatha B. Brown
Ambassador, Benin
Term of Appointment: 06/14/2006 to present

Ms. Gayleatha B. Brown is a career Senior Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. She has served as the U.S. Consul General at the American Consulate General and concurrently as the U.S. Deputy Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. She was Chief of the Economic and Commercial Sections at the U.S. Embassies in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Other tours of duty have included Desk Officer for Canada and also Senegal, Guinea and Mauritania, Department of State, Washington, DC. Ms. Brown was an Economic Officer/Regional United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Representative and Finance and Development Officer at the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Abidjan, respectively. She also has represented the Department of State at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Export Credit Arrangement negotiations as Desk Officer for the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) in the Department's Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs (EB).

Before joining the Department of State, Ms. Brown was a Special Assistant to the USAID Assistant Administrator for Africa and a Legislative Assistant in the United States Congress (House of Representatives). She has BA and MA honor degrees from Howard University and conducted post-graduate work in International Relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), both in Washington, DC.

Ms. Brown is the recipient of two Department of State Superior Honor Awards and a Meritorious Honor Award. She is an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) Sorority and Sandown Rotary Club in Johannesburg, South Africa. She speaks French and KiSwahili in addition to English.