Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar

Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar 

Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar is the Founding Chairman of the Global Energy Center and a Board Director at the Atlantic Council. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan from July 2012 to August 2014. Prior to his appointment, in April 2009, he was the Secretary of State’s Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy. Previously, he also lectured at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Stanford Law School. From June 1999 to September 2001, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. Ambassador Morningstar was also as Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy, where he was responsible for assuring maximum coordination within the executive branch and with other governments and international organizations to promote United States’ policies on Caspian Basin energy development and transportation. From April 1995 to July 1998, he served as Ambassador and Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Assistance for the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (NIS), where he oversaw all U.S. bilateral assistance and trade investment activities in the NIS.  

Ambassador Morningstar also served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Costar Corporation from 1990 to 1993, and as President and CEO from 1981 to 1990. He was an attorney with Peabody and Brown (now Nixon and Peabody) in Boston from 1970 to 1981, where he became a partner in 1977. Prior to returning to the government in 2009, he served as a trustee of the Kosovo-America Educational Foundation and the Eurasia Foundation. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Ambassador Morningstar received his B.A. from Harvard University and his J.D. from Stanford Law School.