Cynthia Guven

Cynthia Iglesias Guven, a career Foreign Service Officer (FSO), is the Agricultural Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in London with regional responsibilities for the United Kingdom and Ireland. Prior to arriving in London, she was the Acting Deputy Administrator (Director General) for the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Office of Foreign Affairs, in Washington, D.C. In this role, she managed the operations of the Foreign Service composed of around 135 FSOs, 30 FSO Trainees, more than 300 locally engaged staff, and 60 civil servants covering nearly 170 countries worldwide. She also served as Assistant Deputy Administrator and Area Director for South and Southeast Asia.

She was previously based in Brussels, Belgium, as the Senior Agricultural Attaché and Deputy to the Minister Counselor for Agriculture at the U.S. Mission to the European Union. Prior to her appointment in Brussels, she served as the Deputy in the Agricultural Sections of the U.S. Embassies in Cairo, Egypt, and Ankara, Turkey, while covering various countries regionally.

Before being posted abroad, Ms. Guven held positions in the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service International Trade Policy Division and the Grain and Feed Division in Washington, D.C. Before joining the Foreign Agricultural Service, Ms. Guven worked as a Researcher in the Economics Section of the Brookings Institution. Ms. Guven earned a Master’s degree in Political Science from The Ohio State University. 

Ms. Guven grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she was raised bilingual and multicultural. She is married with two children and speaks Spanish, French, Turkish, and some Arabic.