About Speaker

Amb. Eric Rubin was elected to serve as the President of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) after his recent posting as U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria (2016-2019). He retired from the Foreign Service in 2023.

Joining the Foreign Service in 1985 after graduating from Yale, he started as a political and human rights officer in Honduras (1985-1988). In 1989 he was assigned to the State Department’s Operations Center. From 1989 to 1991 he worked in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs where he monitored and reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union. Next, he served as the security affairs officer for Central and Eastern Europe

He left Washington in 1994 for Kiev, Ukraine, as Deputy Political Counsellor and in 2001 he was posted to Chiang Mai, Thailand as Consul General.

His return to Washington occurred in 2004 as the director of the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. His role as the executive assistant to R. Nicholas Burns, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the time, began in 2006 and from 2008 to 2011, he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow.