John Hoover hails from Massachusetts and is a career member of the United States Senior Foreign Service. He began his career with the Department of State in 1988. In July, 2013, he was nominated by President Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Sierra Leone.

Previously, Ambassador Hoover served as the Director of the Office of Regional and Security Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs from 2010 to 2013. His work in the field in Africa includes assignments to U.S. Embassies in Uganda as Deputy Chief of Mission, in Kenya as Economic Counselor, and early in his career, in Swaziland as Political-Economic Officer. Additionally, Mr. Hoover has served in Shanghai, China; Taipei, Taiwan; and Paris, France.

Ambassador Hoover is the winner of two global State Department awards: The Herbert Salzman Award for Excellence in International Economic Performance in 2008 for his reporting and commercial advocacy in support of African efforts to enhance connectivity to the worldwide web, and the Director General’s Award for Reporting (co-winner, 1998) for his reporting and analysis of trade issues in Taiwan that contributed to the island’s successful accession to the World Trade Organization.

Prior to his Foreign Service career, Ambassador Hoover worked as an investment banker in New York and Tokyo, and as an English teacher in Japan. He is a 1982 magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University, and a 1978 graduate of Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, Massachusetts, a small town where he grew up playing baseball and ice hockey.

John is married to Kathyrine Lin, and they have two adult sons, Terry and Patrick.

Contact Information

Embassy of the United States of America
Southridge – Hill Station
Freetown, Sierra Leone

Phone: +232 22 515 000
Fax: +232 22 515 355

Website: http://freetown.usembassy.gov/