Biography of Ambassador Patricia Newton Moller

Ambassador Patricia Newton Moller

Ambassador of the United States of America, Republic of Guinea

Patricia Newton Moller is a career diplomat currently serving as U.S. Ambassador to Guinea.  Following ten years in investment banking, she joined the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer in 1987.  In the course of her career she has served in overseas locations including in Munich, Germany, Chennai, India, Belgrade, Serbia, Yerevan, Armenia, Tbilisi, Georgia, and Bujumbura, Burundi.  In Washington from 1991 – 1996, she served first as a Watch Officer, then as an Aid to the Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research.  She was named Vietnam Desk Officer during the exciting days from1993 – 1995 as bilateral negotiations to reestablish diplomatic ties between the two countries were conducted.  Assigned to Belgrade from 1996 to 1999, worsening political crisis forced the Embassy to drawdown its staff three times.  On April 24, 1999, she, along with the Chief of Mission and other remaining Embassy officials, boarded a U.S. Navy jet to depart from Serbia.  NATO bombing of the country began that night.  From 2000 to 2002, she served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Yerevan, Armenia and from 2002 – 2005 as Deputy Chief of Mission in Tbilisi, Georgia through the precedent breaking Rose Revolution.  Nominated as Ambassador to the Republic of Burundi, she was confirmed in early 2006.  In 2009 she was nominated as Ambassador to Guinea.

Ambassador Moller has four times received the Department’s Superior Honor Award and four times been granted a Senior Foreign Service Performance Award.  In 2000, she was granted the Department of State’s Leamon R. Hunt Award for Administrative Excellence, and in 2011 she received the Presidential Meritorious Service award.

Ambassador Moller is married to retired Foreign Service Officer Gilbert Sperling.