Ambassador Sue M. Cobb Joins CSIS Board of Trustees

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2012 – The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) is pleased to announce that Ambassador Sue M. Cobb has joined the CSIS Board of Trustees. Amb. Cobb joins former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski on the 41-member CSIS Board.
 
"I am delighted to welcome Sue Cobb as our newest Trustee,” said Senator Sam Nunn, Chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees. “Her ability to move seamlessly between the worlds of business and public service, along with her selfless character, embody the attributes we need as a nation to make American diplomacy truly effective.”
 
From September 2001 to 2005 Sue Cobb served as the United States Ambassador to Jamaica. Ambassador Cobb was Secretary of State of Florida from December 2005 to January 2007. Throughout 2002 - 2008 Ambassador Cobb was engaged at the U.S. Department of State's Leadership and Management School as co-chair of periodic mandatory seminars for newly designated U.S. ambassadors. The U.S. State Department Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service is awarded annually at the Department Award Ceremony to the individual selected from worldwide nominations as the most outstanding non-career United States Ambassador.
 
“We are honored that Ambassador Cobb has decided to join our board,” said CSIS President and CEO John Hamre. “I am inspired by her, both professionally and personally—from her drive to be the first American woman to reach the summit of Everest to her distinguished legacy of service at the State Department. She is the kind of thinker and doer that inspires us all to do better.”
 
When not in public service Ambassador Cobb has been and continues to be engaged in private sector business activities with Cobb Partners, Inc., a privately held Florida-based investment firm.
 
Ambassador Cobb currently serves on the Board of Directors of BankUnited (NYSE), chairs the Governance and Nominating Committee, and serves on the audit and compensation committees. Prior to entering public service in 1999 as Secretary of the Florida Lottery, Ambassador Cobb was chair of the audit committee of LNR Properties, Inc. Ambassador Cobb served seven years, three terms as Chair of the Board, of the Federal Reserve Bank, Miami Branch. She was the founding partner of the Public Finance Department of the Greenberg Traurig law firm where she practiced for several years.
 
In addition to BankUnited, Ambassador Cobb sits on the Board of Directors of Durango Mountain Resort and Kirkwood Associates Inc. Ambassador Cobb is President of the American Friends of Jamaica, a New York-based charitable entity, and President of Florida-based Cobb Family Foundation. She is on the Board of Trustees of The Council of American Ambassadors and is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami.
 
Sue Cobb is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Miami School of Law. She has published in the University of Miami Law Review and also authored a book entitled “The Edge of Everest”, an account of her travels through China and Tibet and her attempt to be the first woman from the United States to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.
 
Ambassador Cobb is married to Ambassador Charles E. Cobb, Jr. They reside in Coral Gables, Florida.