Ambassador Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis is the United States Ambassador to Hungary. She was sworn in to office by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on January 7, 2010. She presented her credentials to the President of Hungary, László Sólyom on January 11, 2010.
Before accepting President Obama’s nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis was president of AKT Development Corporation, one of California’s largest land development firms. Ambassador Kounalakis earned her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. In 2011, she received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the American College of Greece.
Ambassador Kounalakis and her husband, veteran print and broadcast journalist Markos Kounalakis, founded two university chairs in Hellenic studies. The Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis chair at Georgetown University, and the Tsakopoulos Kounalakis chair in honor of Constantine Mitsotakis at Stanford University. Both chairs focus on the understanding of the origins of Athenian democracy. They also established the Tsakopoulos Kounalakis lecture series at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to focus on democracy and international relations,
Ambassador Kounalakis served for nearly ten years as a Trustee of the World Council of Religions for Peace. In recognition for her work with the WCRP, she was awarded the medal of St. Paul, the Greek Orthodox Church of America’s highest honor. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed her to serve as a Trustee of the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.
Ambassador Kounalakis served four times as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and as an at-large member of the California State Central Committee. She also served as a member of the First 5 California Commission, and the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism. She served as a Trustee of Robert Redford’s Sundance Preserve and on the Conservation Fund’s National Forum on Children and Nature. Ambassador Kounalakis and her husband have two children.