Join us for a conversation with Ambassador Margaret ‘Meg' Whitman ’77, former U.S. ambassador to Kenya and tech executive whose career spans leadership at companies like eBay and Hewlett-Packard. Drawing on her unique experience at the intersection of business, diplomacy, and development, Ambassador Whitman will discuss U.S.-Africa relations, economic growth, and the role of innovation in foreign policy. 

Biography

Meg Whitman

Meg Whitman was confirmed in a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate as the eighteenth United States Ambassador to Kenya on July 14, 2022. She presented her credentials to His Excellency, President Uhuru Kenyatta, on August 5, 2022.

Ambassador Whitman has significant experience leading business organizations, from start-ups to large multinational companies in Silicon Valley. She has served as the President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Hewlett-Packard Company, both multinational information technology companies. She also served as President and CEO of eBay Inc, an online marketplace and digital payments company.

Ms. Whitman has also been a member of a number of corporate boards of directors, including Procter & Gamble and General Motors.

Committed to equality in education and protection of the environment, Ambassador Whitman has been National Board Chair of Teach For America and has been a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy.

Ambassador Whitman is married to Dr. Griffith Harsh, a neurosurgeon. They have two grown sons and two grandchildren.

Whitman holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB in Economics from Princeton University.

Barbara Buckinx

Barbara Buckinx is a Research Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. She received her PhD in Politics from Princeton University and also holds MA and MSc degrees in Psychology and Social and Political Theory, both from the University of Edinburgh.

Prior to returning to Princeton, she was a pre-doctoral fellow with the Political Theory Project at Brown University, a Justitia Amplificata and Kassel Foundation post-doctoral fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt, and a Fellow with the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego.

Her research interests lie in global governance, migration, refugees, citizenship, and borders. Her teaching interests also include the environment and gender. Her work has appeared in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, PS: Political Science & Politics, Migration Studies, Ethics & International Affairs, and Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric. Her article on “The case against removal: Jus noci and harm in deportation practice” (co-authored, A. Filindra) was the Winner of the 2015 Migration Studies Prize for Best Article.

She is co-editor of Domination and Global Political Justice: Conceptual, Historical, and Institutional Perspectives (Routledge, 2015) and is completing a monograph that investigates the problem of the unrestrained and potential exercise of power in global politics. In her monograph as well as her work more generally, Dr Buckinx aims to reconcile the divide between normative political theory and policy research and give guidance to scholars as well as policy makers on what to allow, what to prohibit, and how to target reform in global governance.

She is co-chair of The Global Justice Network and a member of the Global Health Impact's Pandemic Health Equity Working Group and the Normative Theory of Immigration Working Group. She also chairs the selection committee for the annual Jonathan Trejo-Mathys Essay Prize, which is co-sponsored by The Global Justice Network and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College. 

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A video recording will be posted on this page following conclusion of the event.