This is a virtual event. While there is no fee, registration is required. Registrants will be emailed join information before the event.
Join us for our next TransAtlantic Dialogue with the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office Association, the Canadian Ambassadors Alumni Network, and the Canadian Foreign Service Alumni Forum, our counterparts in the United Kingdom and Canada.
The program will be moderated by Simon Smith, chair of the Steering Committee of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House and former UK Ambassador to Ukraine. The panel will be comprised of Sir Laurence Bristow, former UK ambassador to Moscow and Afghanistan; William Courtney, former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia; and Leith Sarty, who served the Canadian Embassy in Moscow twice, the second as Deputy Head of Mission.
Sir Laurie Bristow was her Majesty’s Ambassador to Afghanistan from June to November 2021. Prior to this, Sir Laurie Bristow was the COP26 Regional Ambassador to the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia.
Previously Sir Laurie was Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation, from January 2016 until January 2020. He has also been Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), Director, National Security (2012-2015); FCO, Director, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (2010-2012); Moscow, Minister and Deputy Head of Mission (2007-2010); Baku, Her Majesty's Ambassador (2004-2007); and FCO, Deputy Director, Iraq Planning Unite/Iraq Policy Unit (2003); among other positions.
William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at RAND. He cochairs the America's International Partners advisory council of America250, the executive arm of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission. It inspires and facilitates commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 1776.
In 2014, Ambassador Courtney joined RAND from Computer Sciences Corporation, where he was senior principal for federal policy strategy. From 1972 through 1999 he was a foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State. He was ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the U.S.-Soviet Commission which implemented the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. He was special assistant to the president for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia; deputy negotiator in U.S.-Soviet Defense and Space Talks; deputy executive secretary of the NSC staff; and special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He served abroad in Brasilia, Moscow, Geneva, Almaty, and Tbilisi.
Leigh Sarty is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and Senior Fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto. A graduate of Trinity College at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1983), Carleton University (M.A. 1985) and Columbia University (PhD 1991), he joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1993, serving the Canadian Embassy in Moscow from 1996-99 and then again as Deputy Head of Mission from 2012-16. He also headed the Political Section at the Embassy in Beijing from 2003-07.
In Ottawa he was Director for Russia and East Europe from 2007-12, Director General for Europe from 2016-18 and Global Affairs Canada Scholar in Residence until his retirement in 2021. Leigh speaks both Russian and Mandarin. His pieces on Russia and Sino-Russian relations have appeared in the International Journal, The Washington Quarterly, the Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies and The Line.
Simon Smith chairs the Steering Committee of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House. He was British Ambassador to Ukraine from 2012-15 and before that Economic/Commercial Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow during the last 2 years of Yeltsin's Presidency and the first 2 years of Putin's. In a 35 year career in the British Diplomatic Service he also served as UK Governor on the IAEA Board, and as British Ambassador to Austria and to South Korea.
