International Visitor Leadership Program Alumni Association Launched

November 2, 2009

Panel discussion on International Visitor experiences with Jaap Verheul, Femke Hoogeveen, Jan Melissen, Fatima Elatik , Kamran Ullah. Photo: American Embassy

In connection with the launching of the Dutch Alumni Association for the International Visitor Leadership Program, approximately 100 alumni attended a conference at the Clingendael Institute, where Ambassador Fay Hartog Levin stressed the importance of the alumni network to the entire U.S. Mission in the Netherlands.  She expressed the hope that the Alumni Association would quickly become a leading platform for an active dialogue.

Keynote speaker Professor Giles Scott-Smith, the author of Networks of Empire, the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Leaders Program in the Netherlands 1950-1970, spoke about the early years of the International Visitor Leadership Program. A forum discussion with IVLP Alumni, who each told the audience how the program had affected their lives, completed the official program. Many more alumni attended the reception that was hosted by Ambassador Levin afterwards.

The launch of the Alumni Association coincided with the visit of a large delegation from the U.S., which included the Director of the Office of International Visitors, the Chief, Europe and Eurasia Branch of the Office of International Visitors, the President of the National Council for International Visitor, Board Members of the NCIV and of local Councils of International Visitors from all over the U.S.

Annually, the International Visitor Leadership Program brings to the United States approximately 5,000 foreign nationals from all over the world to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience America firsthand. The visitors, who are selected by American Foreign Service Officers overseas, are current or potential leaders in government, politics, the media, education, the arts, business and other fields.

Among the thousands of distinguished individuals who have participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program since its inception almost seven decades ago are more than 290 current and former Chiefs of State and Heads of Government, 2000 cabinet-level ministers, and many other distinguished leaders from the public and private sector.