Tomicah Tillemann - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Tomicah Sterling Tillemann-Dick serves as the Senior Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies to Secretary of State John Kerry.[1] He and his team work like venture capitalists to identify ideas that can strengthen new democracies and civil society groups, and then bring together the talent, technology, and resources needed to translate promising concepts into reality. Tillemann often refers to his work as "policy entrepreneurship." Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Tillemann as the key architect behind many of her flagship initiatives to engage partners beyond governments,[2] harness the power of technology,[3] promote strategic philanthropy,[4] and remake the Community of Democracies.

Early Life, Academic Work and Family[edit]

Tillemann grew up as the oldest of ten children in Denver, Colorado. An Eagle Scout, he was accepted to college at age 14 and received his BA magna cum laude from Yale University.[5] He went on to earn a doctorate with distinction from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS).[6] Tillemann was a graduate instructor in American foreign policy at SAIS and lectured at Yale and Princeton. His academic awards include a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship and a Mellon Research Grant. Tillemann is the oldest grandson of Tom Lantos, the former Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Tillemann's paternal grandmother, Nancy Dick, served as the first woman Lieutenant Governor of Colorado.

Policy, Civil Society and Political Work[edit]

Before coming to the State Department, Tillemann spent four years on the professional staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the principal advisor on European and Eurasian affairs to former Committee chairmen Joe Biden and John Kerry. He also facilitated the work of the Senate's Subcommittee on European Affairs, then chaired by Barack Obama. Earlier in his career, he worked as a reporter with Reuters New Media, hosted a commercial radio program in Denver, Colorado, served in the White House Office of Media Affairs, and spent time as a senior staffer on four U.S. Senate and Congressional campaigns.[7] Tillemann helped to found and lead numerous civil society groups and served on the board of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. He has also testified repeatedly before Congress.[8] In 2009, he came together with John McCain and Nancy Pelosi to deliver the closing speech at the inaugural presentation of the Lantos Human Rights Prize to the 14th Dalai Lama.[9]

State Department[edit]

Tillemann moved to the State Department shortly after Hillary Clinton was appointed Secretary of State to serve as speechwriter in her office.[10] He collaborated with Clinton on over 200 speeches and often accompanied her on international travel. In October 2010, Clinton promoted Tillemann to Senior Advisor and asked him to create and lead a new office reporting to her that would be devoted to strengthening civil society and emerging democracies worldwide. In this capacity, he and his team worked on behalf of the Secretary to develop over a dozen major initiatives. These include remaking the Community of Democracies into a leading platform for multilateral democracy support, developing the Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society into the State Department's flagship effort to collaborate with partners outside of government, launching the LEND Network to provide a global technology platform for information sharing among leaders in new democracies, developing a new "race to the top" program to encourage reform in emerging democracies, and streamlining rules around cross-border grantmaking to support international civil society organizations.[11]

Technology[edit]

Together with his late father and two brothers, Tillemann is a co-holder of four patents related to the IRIS engine, an advanced clean technology that has won awards from NASA, ConocoPhillips, and Dow.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Office of the Senior Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies [12]