Mona Sutphen

Sutphen is the daughter of a white mother and an African American father who lived in Kansas City, Mo. Because interracial marriage was illegal, her parents scooted over the border to Kansas one lunch hour for a wedding ceremony.(1) Sutphen graduated from Mount Holyoke College with an international relations degree and earned a master’s degree in international political economy from the London School of Economics. She joined the Foreign Service in 1992, and was posted to Bangkok and Sarajevo. In Thailand, she kept tabs on the pro-democracy movement in Burma. She helped implement the civilian provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia.