May 06, 2022. The United States President, Joe Biden, has announced that Hugo F. Rodriguez Jr. will be his nominee for Nicaraguan Ambassador.
If successful, he will replace the current Ambassador; Kevin K. Sullivan who has been in place since October 2018.
Hugo F. Rodriguez Jr., Nominee for Nicaraguan Ambassador
Hugo F. Rodriguez, Jr., Nominee to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Nicaragua
Hugo F. Rodriguez, Jr., a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, currently serves as a Senior Advisor in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. He was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and in 2021 assumed the role of Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the bureau. Before that, Rodriguez served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Asunción, Paraguay and as the Embassy’s Charge d’ Affaires a.i. (ad interim temporarily acting for an absent head of mission) from 2017 to 2018. Earlier, Rodriguez served as Consul General at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and as the Mission’s Acting Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs. He previously served as Deputy Director of the Office of Mexican Affairs, as Division Chief for the Western Hemisphere in the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Overseas Citizen Services office, and as a Watch Officer and Senior Watch Officer in the Executive Secretariat’s Operations Center. Other overseas assignments include U.S. Embassies in Lima, Peru and Rome, Italy.
A native of Pennsylvania, Rodriguez holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Hampden-Sydney College. The recipient of numerous State Department performance awards, Rodriguez speaks Italian and Spanish.
Current Ambassador
Ambassador Kevin K. Sullivan was confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua on October 11th, 2018 (having been nominated by President Donald Trump). Prior to that appointment he was the Deputy Permanent Representative to the United States Mission to the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.
He has previously served in Buenos Aires, Argentina as well as Lilongwe, Malawi.
Ambassador Sullivan has served at six United States Missions overseas in Latin America and Africa and has significant experience in economic and commercial issues as well as being a strong advocate for democracy and human rights. Sullivan earned a B.A. at Georgetown University and an M.A. from Princeton University.
