Diplomats from 16 countries join Fletcher’s inaugural executive program
What does continuing education look like for diplomats?
The Fletcher School has been training future diplomats and foreign service officials for over 90 years. But learning is a lifelong process that doesn't stop at commencement. To meet a growing need, in the fall of 2025, Fletcher Executive Education launched the Global Diplomacy Institute (GDI) for mid-career professionals in this space. We welcomed 22 diplomats from 16 countries for a week of advanced training designed to support their career journeys.
A New Kind of Learning
The program fills a longstanding gap in the global diplomatic training landscape. While many governments focus on early-career development, mid-career programs remain rare.
Also rare are programs that cross international divides, training diplomats together from different countries, rather than a single ministry.
The Global Diplomacy Institute meets a clear need for professional development that convenes diplomats from many regions to reflect, learn, and collaborate.
Building a Multinational Training Program for Diplomats
"Diplomats are facing new demands: more complex negotiations, cross-sector collaboration, crisis response, and public engagement at a scale that looks very different from even a decade ago” notes Hilary Price, Associate Dean for Strategic Partnerships, who spearheaded this initiative.
“Across regions and roles, we heard the same message,” says Price. “Diplomats want ongoing opportunities for professional development—spaces to learn from peers and time to step back, reflect, and think strategically about the challenges they face.”
Building on the Executive Education team’s deep experience in designing training programs for individual government agencies like the foreign ministries of India and the Philippines, they designed the multinational GDI program.
Ebrahim, Price, and Johnstone with keynote speaker H.E. Suriya Chindawongse, F90, FG93
Faculty co-chairs Professor Ian Johnstone and Professor Alnoor Ebrahim, working with Jenny Strakovsky, ssociate Director of Program Design, created a curriculum that blends academic discussion, experiential learning, site visits, a multi-day team project, and real-world engagement.
"We spent close to a year speaking directly with diplomats, foreign ministries, international organizations, and alumni currently serving in the field," says Strakovsky.
"These conversations helped us identify the capabilities and mindsets modern diplomacy now requires—systems thinking, resilience, strategic communication, cross-cultural leadership, and the ability to navigate uncertainty.”
The Greek Consulate in Boston, led by Fletcher alumnus Symeon Tegos, F14, and the Consul General of Greece in Boston also hosted a focus group of local diplomats that provided additional insights.
Ebrahim, who teaches leadership at Fletcher, emphasized the program’s unique hands-on approach: "Education works best when we can combine the intellectual stimulation of the classroom with experiential learning based in the real world. This is as true for executives and diplomats as it is for our graduate students."
Inside the Global Diplomacy Institute Experience
Curious about the specifics of a GDI program? While the curriculum and experiences will evolve with each new class, we’ve brought together the highlights of the training and reflections from our inaugural class.
Voices of Leading Diplomats
Keynotes bookended the week and provided an anchor for the themes explored throughout the program. The institute opened with remarks from His Excellency Suriya Chindawongse, F90, FG93, Thai Ambassador to the United States and a Fletcher graduate. He examined the forces reshaping global governance and discussed how diplomats can respond to shifting expectations and increasing geopolitical uncertainty.
Midweek, participants heard from Ambassador Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to China. Burns provided a candid look at diplomatic practice and great-power relations, offering an inside perspective on one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world. Both addresses set the tone for a program that encouraged reflection on the changing demands of modern diplomacy.
Faculty-Led Panels and Hands-On Learning
Throughout the week, participants joined faculty for panels on the challenges facing an increasingly turbulent international system. The program opened with a panel on the emerging world order by Professor Dan Drezner, Professor Monica Toft, and Ambassador Chris Hill, and during the week, included several sessions on different approaches to leadership and influence.
Former Costa Rican President and Fletcher faculty Carlos Alvarado joined virtually for a dialogue on entrepreneurial leadership with Fletcher Dean of Global Business and former McKinsey Partner Bhaskar Chakravorti, drawing on Alvarado’s experience with small state diplomacy to encourage new ideas about statecraft and innovation.
Central to the program was a weeklong team project, in which diplomats examined one of three core policy themes and were asked to produce a forward-looking proposal and a realistic diplomatic strategy for advancing it.
The three project themes focused on this year, which were complemented by panels to share recent trends and issues, were:
• Environment
• Migration
• Technology
By the end of the week, each group had developed a set of recommendations along with a diplomatic strategy that accounted for the political, institutional, legal, and cross-sector realities of their issue area.
“As co-chairs, we were very impressed with the recommendations from the teams,” said Johnstone. “The global public policy challenges they tackled are issues on which multilateral cooperation has proven to be extraordinarily difficult. Each group devised not only a set of constructive proposals, but also innovative diplomatic strategies for how to bring them about.”
Site Visits Across Boston
Field engagement formed a major component of the program. Participants visited Oxfam America for discussions with senior leaders about humanitarian response, conflict dynamics,, and the role of civil society in global policymaking.
The cohort also visited VIA Science, in which Fletcher’s Dean of Global Business, Bhaskar Chakravorti, led a discussion with tech leaders on how technology, analytics, and private-sector innovation influence major policy debates. The conversations focused on the opportunities and risks associated with data-driven decision-making and illustrated how private companies increasingly hold expertise central to global challenges.
“Boston is one of the world’s great intellectual hubs,” said Ebrahim. “The major challenges facing our world cannot be addressed by governments alone. The connections that are possible here enable diplomats to engage effectively with business and civil society.”
The day concluded with a Boston Harbor dinner cruise that allowed participants to continue conversations in an informal setting and strengthened the connections forming across the cohort.
Global Diplomacy Institute—Looking Ahead
GDI is now positioned to become a key annual offering within Fletcher Executive Education, and Fletcher expects the program to grow into one of the school’s signature contributions to global diplomatic practice. The inaugural year produced a network of diplomats who left with new tools, insights, and professional connections.
“Participating in the Global Diplomacy Institute was a meaningful experience that will have a significant impact on my future career,” said participant Alexander Nowakowski, a diplomat for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “It was exciting to see how different perspectives contribute remarkably to finding solutions otherwise difficult to imagine—-as well as to make friends along the way."
Lean more about the Global Diplomacy Institute.
