Bruce Gelb
Advisory Board Member
President of the Council of American Ambassadors
 
Bruce S. Gelb is the President of the Council of American Ambassadors. He is at present a senior consultant to Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

Prior to this responsibility, Ambassador Gelb had been appointed Commissioner for the United Nations, Consular Corps and International Business by New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, serving from 1994 to 1997. In this capacity, Commissioner Gelb was responsible for the strategy and implementation of actions to bring international businesses to New York City and the retention of resident foreign companies, the United Nations and its agencies.

Before his work as a Commissioner for New York City, Bruce Gelb served in the George H.W. Bush administration as the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium (1991 – 1993) and as Director of the U.S. Information Agency (1989 – 1991). Prior to his service in government, he was Vice Chairman of the Board of Bristol-Myers Company, now products and health care businesses. Bruce Gelb has served as a member of President Bush’s Arts and Humanities Committee and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is also a former Trustee of Howard University and a past Board member of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Bruce Gelb is currently Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club; a Life Trustee of Choate Rosemary Hall; a board member of the United Nations Development Corporation; a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Council on Science and Health; a Regent of the Center for Security Policy; a member of the Advisory Board of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy; and he serves on the Board of the National Organization on Disability. In February 2003, Ambassador Gelb was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Board of Trustees, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where he was also President of the Wilson Council until 2006.

Ambassador Gelb was born in New York City. After service in the U.S. Navy, he received his B.A. degree in 1950 from Yale University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1953. He holds an honorary Ph.D. from Monterey Institute of International Studies.