Mary D. Kane

Mary D. Kane is the Director of the United States Diplomacy Center.  She brings a wealth of public and private sector experience to the project, having served as President and CEO of Sister Cities International, a citizen diplomacy network created by President Eisenhower 61 years ago to promote international peace, understanding, and cooperation.  It has over 500 city, county, or state members that have entered into partnerships with their counterparts across the globe. Mary has also been Executive Director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Secretary of State for Maryland, where she led the Governor’s Subcabinet on International Affairs.  She was instrumental in establishing the Maryland “Safe at Home” program for victims of domestic violence. She has served on the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins Medicine at Suburban Hospital and as a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Public-Private Partnerships. In 2016, she was named one of the top 25 “Women Who Mean Business” in the Washington, DC, region. She received her law degree from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and earned her B.S. in Business and Finance from Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, where she is now the first woman Chair of the Board of Trustees.  She and her husband have three grown children.