The Diplomat
US President Joe Biden has chosen lawyer Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón to be ambassador to Spain and Andorra, the White House announced yesterday, along with eight other nominations.
Julissa Reynoso must now pass through the US Senate and obtain the Spanish government’s approval for her appointment to take place. This will be the first time that a woman has headed the US Embassy in Madrid.
The future ambassador was included by the US president in the transition team, as chief of staff to the first lady, Jill Biden, a post she currently holds. In a statement, the President’s wife said: “She has been an exceptional and incredible leader and friend. Given her experience and her heart, I can think of no one better than Julissa to represent us in Spain and Andorra”.
Julissa Reynoso was born in the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the United States in 1982 at the age of seven. She grew up in the Bronx in New York and graduated from Harvard University, Cambridge University and Columbia Law School.
Contrary to recent appointments of US ambassadors to Spain -as in other parts of the world- Julissa Reynoso is not among the main donors to the president’s election campaign.
Reynoso has been a partner at the law firm Winston & Strawn and in 2009, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, where she developed comprehensive security and rule of law strategies for Central America and the Caribbean.
In 2012, President Barack Obama appointed her as US Ambassador to Uruguay, where she remained until 2014.
She also serves on the boards of several non-profit and advocacy organisations, as well as a trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University. She is on the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Truman National Security Project.
Since the change of administration in the US in January, when former Ambassador Duke Buchan left Madrid, the Embassy has been headed by Minister Counsellor Conrad Tribble as Chargé d’Affaires for the past seven months.
Given that Reynosso has been ambassador before and was currently in charge of the first lady’s office, it is expected that the process of confirmation as ambassador to Spain and Andorra by the Senate will not take long.
