A. Elizabeth Jones

Executive Vice President
APCO Worldwide, Inc.

The Honorable A. Elizabeth Jones, Executive Vice President, APCO Worldwide, handles international advocacy and strategic counsel for APCO clients and leads the Washington firm’s Business Diplomacy practice. She has extensive international experience in Europe, Eurasia, South Asia and the Middle East. She spent 35 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, where she achieved the highest rank of Career Ambassador.

As Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia for the U.S. Department of State, Ambassador Jones designed U.S. policies for NATO and European Union countries, Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia. She supervised 54 U. S. Ambassadors and their embassies.

She held numerous other high-ranking government positions including: U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Near East Bureau; Senior Advisor for Caspian Energy Diplomacy; Executive Assistant to Secretary of State Warren Christopher; Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Bonn, Germany; and Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Islamabad, Pakistan. Her other overseas assignments included Kabul, Cairo, Beirut, Tunis, Amman, Baghdad, and Berlin.

Ambassador Beth Jones received her Master of Arts in International Relations, Strategic Studies from Boston University’s Berlin Campus and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Swarthmore College. She speaks Russian and German and has retained a basic knowledge of Arabic. She is married to Donald A. Ruschman and has two grown children.