Nairobi — The newly appointed United States Ambassador to Kenya, Margaret Cushing Whitman, has arrived in the country to take on her new role.
Whitman, appointed by President Joe Biden in December 2021, takes over Kyle McCarter who was appointed during the tenure of President Donald Trump.
Ambassador Whitman was confirmed in a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate as the eighteenth United States Ambassador to Kenya on July 14, 2022.
Whitman was a senior member of Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2012 and ran for Governor of California as a Republican in 2010 but supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in the 2020 election.
She has significant experience leading business organizations, from start-ups to large multinational companies in Silicon Valley.
Whitman has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Hewlett-Packard Company, both multinational information technology companies.
She also served as President and CEO of eBay Inc., an online marketplace and digital payments company.
Whitman has also been a member of a number of corporate boards of directors, including Procter & Gamble and General Motors.
In 2014, Whitman was named 20th in the Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.
Committed to equality in education and protection of the environment, Ambassador Whitman has been National Board Chair of Teach For America and served as a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy.
Whitman holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB in Economics from Princeton University.