Ambassador Vicki Huddleston was the U.S. Ambassador to Mali and to Madagascar and acting Ambassador in Ethiopia. She is a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa. Earlier in her career she held the same position at the Department of State. Ambassador Huddleston was the Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana from 1999 to 2002. Ten years earlier she was Deputy Coordinator and then promoted to Coordinator of Cuban Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. As a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute she wrote with Ambassador Carlos Pascual "Learning to Salsa – New Steps in U.S.- Cuban Relations" that provided a blueprint for normalizing relations with Cuba, much of which President Obama followed. She maintains her links with Cuba through her small company that in coordination with the Cuba National Association of Economists and Accountants provides business- training workshops to Cubans. Ambassador Huddleston has written opinion pieces on Mali, Ethiopia, and Cuba for The New York Times, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post. She appears regularly on major networks as a commentator on Cuba and Africa and is a popular speaker for foreign affairs groups and universities. She is a board member of Finca Vijia (Earnest Hemingway’s former home in Cuba), Havana Heritage Foundation, and the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum. She is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.