Chat with Ambassador Thomas Pickering Founding Co-Chair of IEA

Enterprises, executives and ICT professionals must think global and work globally to survive and succeed. The biggest impediment is the serious lack of understanding and respect of foreign markets, customs and culture. The non-profit International Economic Alliance or IEA, initiated via the work of Harvard and US Presidents bridges the gaps. Tom Pickering is a founder and his insights are highly valuable to executives, and ICT professionals. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it.

Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Ambassador Retired, joined Boeing in 2001 upon his retirement as US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, a position he held since May 1997. He served as Senior Vice President of International Relations as a member of the Executive Council of The Boeing Company until July 1st 2006, where he oversaw the company's international affairs, including those with foreign governments. He has been a Senior Advisor for the company since. In December 2006, he became Vice Chair of Hills & Company, which provides advice and counsel to a number of major US corporations. Ambassador Pickering was briefly President of the Eurasia Foundation, a Washington-based organization that makes small grants and loans in the states of the former Soviet Union.

Pickering holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the US Foreign Service, and has served as US ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jordan in a diplomatic career spanning five decades. From 1989 to 1993, he served as Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations in New York, and from 1973 to 1974, as Executive Secretary of the Department of State and Special Assistant to Secretaries William P. Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger.

Pickering entered active duty in the U.S. Navy from 1956-1959, and later served in the Naval Reserve to the grade of Lieutenant Commander. Between 1959 and 1961, he was assigned to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the State Department and later to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and from 1962 to 1964 in Geneva as political adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the 18-Nation Disarmament Conference.

He earned a Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a Bachelor's degree *** laude, with high honors in History from Bowdoin College. Ambassador Pickering was granted both the Distinguished Presidential Award and the State Department's highest award — the Distinguished Service Award. He is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. He speaks French, Spanish and Swahili and has some fluency in Arabic, Hebrew and Russian.

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic

:00:30:
What are your top career successes and lessons learned that you feel may be useful to the audience?
"....If you are a Diplomat, listening is probably something you should be doing two thirds of the time. I try to practice that when I'm engaged with folks because in many ways what people have to say and what they want you to hear are often very, very important. But even more important is sometimes what they actually mean underneath all of that isn't exactly what they say. Occasionally I found that they're not really sure what they mean until you have a chance to sit down and ask them a few questions...."

:03:46:
Can you describe your journey leading to your current role as Founding Co-chair of the International Economic Alliance (IEA) and how your prior roles play an integral part in this journey?
"....I had been Ambassador to Russia for a number of months and it became quite clear that a very interesting set of activities were happening at Harvard (which used the business school when it attracted faculty and indeed the Harvard reputation). A number of people in and around Harvard plus some private folks helped to inspire and respond to a Russian desire to be able to meet, work with and develop business contacts that would eventually emerge through into investments in Russia. So Harvard began to sponsor conferences (I went because I was Ambassador to Russia), and that quickly morphed into a situation in which it became clear that many other countries wanted to participate....It has what is purely a historical connection with Harvard and a very useful way to bring to its meetings (which were held annually in New York at the time of the opening of the United Nations General Assembly), a number of key Harvard faculty members who constitute one area of interest to the countries involved, as well as to the corporations who invariably are able to gather two to three hundred people. We have fifty-one countries that have been involved very much in our work...."

For more of the interview go to:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/cdnitmanagers/archive/2014/07/03/chat-with-ambassador-thomas-pickering-founding-co-chair-of-iea-international-relations-government-innovation-business-investment-and-policy-top-authority.aspx