WASHINGTON, December 18, 2023 – The board and staff of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington were delighted to present the inaugural Bridgebuilder Award to Ambassador Frank G. Wisner.

AGSIW was pleased to honor Wisner’s illustrious diplomatic career and his crucial role in founding the institute and serving as its inaugural chair of the board.

Wisner is the outgoing chair of the board of directors of AGSIW and international affairs advisor for Squire Patton Boggs in New York City. He provides clients with strategic global advice concerning business, politics, and international law from the firm’s Washington and New York offices. Ambassador to India, Egypt, the Philippines, and Zambia, Wisner’s legendary diplomatic career spans four decades and includes positions of senior leadership at the Department of State and Pentagon. He worked closely with the late Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to launch negotiations with Zimbabwe and Namibia and served as the U.S. special representative to the Kosovo Status Talks in 2005, where he played a crucial role in negotiating Kosovo’s independence.

AGSIW Interim Board Chair Ambassador C. David Welch said, “Frank Wisner is a legend, a man who cuts a figure larger than life and whose intellect, experience, and advice ring as true today as in the late 1970s. He merits this honor and the respect it implies. It is fitting that Frank is its first recipient.”

AGSIW President Ambassador Douglas A. Silliman said, “I feel an immense amount of gratitude for Frank’s leadership of AGSIW as chair of the institute’s board of directors. He has been at the forefront of AGSIW’s work since the beginning. He has fostered an institutional culture that not only prioritizes being policy relevant and providing practical solutions to our stakeholders, but Frank also values and supports the people on the team who make this work possible. Under his thoughtful, visionary leadership, the institute has developed and thrived and is now the most trusted source for analysis relating to the Gulf and U.S.-Gulf relations, reaching hundreds of thousands of people through its programs and publications each year. As I reflect on the extraordinary impact and legacy of Frank’s leadership, I feel exceptionally fortunate to honor him with AGSIW’s inaugural Bridgebuilder Award.”

###

The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) is an independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to highlighting the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Gulf region through free and open exchange of multiple points of view on issues that concern the Gulf.

AGSIW strives to support this goal by:

• Providing expert analysis and thoughtful debate on the economic, energy, environmental, security, social, cultural, and political dimensions of the Gulf Arab states as well as their relations with the United States and other countries.
• Informing a global audience of policymakers, legislators, businesspeople, academics, media, youth, and others as the foundation for strategic decisions regarding this important region.
• Employing multiple avenues to inform public understanding of the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab states.
• Encouraging strong academic coverage by developing scholars who concentrate on the study of the region.