1. Catherine Blowers
Influence through positive engagement
Catherine Blowers and her family crossed the Atlantic by ship for her
father’s first diplomatic posting in Athens, Greece. She was just six
weeks old. After traversing seven countries on four continents,
graduating from college, and starting a family, Catherine launched her own career as a
diplomat in 1995.
Catherine’s long experience “marketing” American core values and beliefs as a public
diplomacy officer has given her the skills to persuade, influence, and inform different
audiences on virtually any issue or cause. She has strong interpersonal skills, is
culturally sensitive, and adapts well to change. She learned how to help others cope
with change by raising three daughters in their nomadic life. Catherine is keen to put
these strengths to use in a different setting.
During her 21-year career, Catherine worked in Mozambique, South Africa, and Egypt,
in addition to holding domestic positions at the State Department in Washington, DC.
She strategically used information, cultural, and academic exchanges, U.S. speaker
programs, American arts exhibits and music tours, and engagement through traditional
and social media to foster people-to-people relationships and encourage mutual
understanding. The ultimate goal of these activities was to offer foreign audiences a
more authentic view of the United States than what they saw and heard through popular
media.
Catherine is passionate about bringing people together through any means possible to
spark dialogue, air differences, dispel mutual misperceptions. It is through these
interactions that the foundation for peace and tolerance can be built, one conversation
at a time.