Ambassador Donald J. Planty

Ambassador Donald J. Planty is a Senior Peace Fellow at Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG). Ambassador Planty is also a Senior Advisor of the Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), where he advises clients on international issues. He is also President and CEO of Planty & Associates LLC, his own consulting firm. He is former Senior Foreign Service Officer of the United States and U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala with 40 years of experience in the public and private sectors. Ambassador Planty is an expert on Latin American affairs and European security issues, drawing on his experience living and working in Panama, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala, Norway, Italy, and Spain. As Ambassador to Guatemala, he was instrumental in facilitating negotiation of the historic 1996 Peace Accords, which ended four decades of internal conflict in that country.

Ambassador Planty was a co-founder of Port Security International, a homeland security solutions firm, and a Senior Managing Director at Manatt Jones Global Strategies, an international consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, Ambassador Planty was Chairman of the Board of the Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production (WRAP) and served as the Executive Director of Caribbean/Latin American Action (C/LAA), a non-profit organization promoting U.S. trade and investment in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ambassador Planty’s senior diplomatic positions included Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway; Counselor for Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain and Deputy Personal Representative of the President and Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.

Ambassador Planty is considered one of the foremost experts on Spain and one of the most experienced military base rights negotiators. He was awarded the U.S. State Department’s Superior Honor Award in 1982 for his work on the Treaty of Friendship, Defense and Cooperation between the U.S. and Spain.

Ambassador Planty also has extensive Washington experience. He served as Legislative Management Officer in the Bureau of Congressional Relations at the

U.S. Department of State, Staff Assistant for Operations in the Executive Office of the Secretary of State and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Chafee (R-RI). He holds an A.B degree from Fordham University in Inter-American Relations, a M.A. in Political Science from the University of New Mexico and a Certificate of Study from the Universidad Catolica de Chile.