Ambassador Craft
Ambassador, Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations (former)

Ambassador Kelly Craft was sworn in to the position of Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations on September 10, 2019 and held the position until January 2021. 

While leading the United States Mission to the United Nations, Ambassador Craft promoted peace, human rights and human dignity for people around the globe.  She worked tirelessly to secure lifesaving humanitarian assistance for the millions of refugees from Syria, South Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen.  Ambassador Craft also negotiated the resolutions of old and new conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus, while promoting democracy, religious freedoms and the protection of minorities in China, Iran, Myanmar and other parts of the world.

Ambassador Craft served as the United States Ambassador to Canada from October 2017 until assumption of her USUN role in 2019. During her time as Ambassador, she worked through the complex revisiting of the NAFTA treaty, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA.  This agreement was historic not only for its economic magnitude, but for its cutting-edge labor laws that protected the dignity of workers in all three countries.

Ambassador Kelly Craft is a leader, entrepreneur and philanthropist who has made community service and improving education the cornerstone of her career.

As a third-generation Kentuckian, Ambassador Craft served her community by assuming several leadership roles with the Salvation Army of Lexington and the Center for Rural Development, a non-profit dedicated to the economic development of rural Kentucky. She also served in similar roles in the cultural leadership of her state, working with the Kentucky Arts Council and the United Way of the Bluegrass.

With a deep commitment to education, Ambassador Craft has served on the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees and co-founded the Morehead State University Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics.

In 2007, President George W. Bush appointed Ambassador Craft as an alternate delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.

In 2021, Ambassador Craft was selected by former Vice President Mike Pence to service on the Advancing American Freedom advisory board.  The organization promotes and defends the successful policies of recent years that yielded unprecedented prosperity at home and restored America’s strength abroad, while elevating traditional American values.  In April of 2021, she was also selected by Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya to serve on the advisory board of The Tent Partnership for Refugees, which works with businesses to include refugees by engaging them as potential employees, entrepreneurs, and consumers.  Ambassador Craft was selected as a board member in May 2021 to the Canadian American Business Council and also to the board of the Institute for the Study of War.

Ambassador Craft is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Morehead State University. She and her husband, Joe Craft, who is also native Kentuckian, share six children and twelve grandchildren.