Ambassador Michael Ratney was sworn in as U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia March 21, 2023. In Saudi Arabia, Ratney leads a team of over 1,000 Americans, Saudis, and individuals from 20 other countries in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dhahran. As a career senior foreign service officer, Ratney’s career has taken him on assignments abroad and to Washington, DC. In recent years, he was the acting deputy director of the U.S. Department of State’s training center, the Foreign Service Institute, where he was also dean of the Department of State’s School of Language Studies. He was chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in 2021 and earlier served on the faculty of the National Defense University.

Ratney was the U.S. special envoy for Syria from 2015-18 and also served as acting deputy assistant secretary for the Levant and Israel and Palestinian Affairs. He was the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem from 2012-15, where he was responsible for U.S. relations with Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. Previously, he was deputy assistant secretary of state for international media, overseeing a network of State Department media hubs throughout the world, and spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

Other assignments across his career of more than 30 years include deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Doha as well as tours in Mexico City, Baghdad, Beirut, Casablanca, and Bridgetown.

Ambassador Ratney earned a BS from Boston University and an MA from the George Washington University. He is the recipient of multiple State Department performance awards, including six Senior Foreign Service Performance awards and a Presidential Meritorious Service award. Ratney speaks Arabic and French.