Chris Hegadorn

Chris Hegadorn is a retired U.S. diplomat whose 28-year government career included a quarter-century as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State and earlier positions in the U.S. Senate and the Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service. Before launching his consulting business, he led the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris as its Acting Ambassador. In Paris, Chris and his team designed and implemented two successful, multi-million dollar public-private partnerships; one to prevent violent extremism through improved education systems; the other to strengthen science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for girls via enhanced teacher training skills. These partnerships benefited from the funding and expertise of partners Microsoft, Fitbit, and many other individuals and foundations.

Earlier, as Director of the Department of State's Office of Global Food Security, Chris helped design and lead implementation of a multi-million dollar initiative to protect the food security and fisheries of Caribbean states through innovative insurance and finance tools. He also enlisted Mexico and Canada to devise a multi-million dollar project to jointly assist Central American states to mitigate the impact of climate change on their fragile food systems. As the Political Affairs Officer at the U.S. Mission to the UN Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome, Italy, Chris served as Vice Chair of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Finance Committee and negotiated the overhaul of FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS), chaired a group which created the CFS's High Level Panel of Experts, and negotiated a comprehensive reform package for FAO. At the Agriculture Department as a Presidential Fellow, Chris helped streamline the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program by improving service delivery for participants. During his career, Chris served tours in China, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, speaks Chinese, Arabic, French, and Italian, and earned 15 individual and group honor awards at State. He has degrees from Bryant University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the National Defense University.

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