Trump to Nominate PayPal Co-Founder Ken Howery to be Ambassador to Sweden

October 17, 2018 By in Nominations, Officially In, Political Appointees, Trump Tags: , ,

The WH announced the President’s intent to nominate venture capitalist and PaPal co-founder Kenneth Howery to be his ambassador to Sweden. The WH release a brief bio:

Kenneth A. Howery of Texas, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Sweden.

Mr. Howery is a venture capitalist and entrepreneur specializing in creating and funding technology companies. He is a co-founder of and partner at Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Prior to Founders Fund, Mr. Howery co-founded PayPal, where he served as the company’s first Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, he is a founding advisor to Kiva.org, a non-profit group that helps develop the next generation of global entrepreneurs. Mr. Howery earned his B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.

His official bio from the Founders Fund is here. You might also want to check out this 2016 piece from Ivy Magazine, Behind the Scenes With PayPal Co-Founder Ken Howery.

If confirmed, Mr. Howery would succeed banker and philanthropist, Azita Raji who served as chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy Stockholm from March 2016 to January 2017. Previous appointees to the U.S. Embassy in Sweden includes lawyer, Mark Brzezinski and business executive, Matthew Barzun.  According to AFSA’s tracker, only three ambassadors appointed as chief of mission to Sweden had been career diplomats; 83.3% of ambassadors appointed to Stockholm (15 in actual number) since 1960 were non-career appointees.