Harvard native Simon Henshaw, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of minister counselor, and American diplomat since 1985, has been nominated by the Trump administration to be the United States ambassador to the Republic of Guinea. He is currently a senior advisor to the Health Initiatives Task Force at the Department of State, coordinating efforts to respond to a series of health and security incidents affecting United States diplomats in Cuba and China.
Previously, Henshaw served in senior leadership positions at the Department of State, including as the principal deputy assistant secretary and later as acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration from 2013 to 2018. Additionally, from 2011 to 2013, he served as director of the Office of Andean Affairs. Between 2008 and 2011, he was deputy chief of mission at the U. S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Henshaw has also served at five other overseas diplomatic posts. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master’s from the National War College. He is the recipient of 12 notable awards from the Department of State. Henshaw speaks French, Spanish, basic Russian, and basic Portuguese.
Before he entered the Foreign Service, Henshaw honed his diplomatic skills as a reporter for the Harvard Post, the predecessor of the Harvard Press.
