Mark Donfried

After completing my undergraduate studies in European History and French at Columbia University, I then pursued graduate research at the Institut des Études Politiques where I wrote his thesis on "la diplomatie du jazz." Following this, Mark worked as an Analyst at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York, in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department of Credit Suisse First Boston, and then at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik. In 2001 I founded the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD): an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in New York City. The ICD has since opened a European Headquarters in Berlin, where I am presently based. I am currently a Visiting Professor at Humboldt University in Berlin teaching, for example, a seminar for undergraduates on “Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy.” I am focusing my current research and publishing in the field of civil society based cultural diplomacy.