Temuri Yakobashvili

Ambassador Yakobashvili is founder and president of the TY Strategies LLC, a boutique consulting firm specializing in advising governments, non-governmental institutions and business communities in the U.S., Europe and Eurasia. Prior to that, he served as an Executive Vice President of PASS LLC, a global social impact consultancy firm. In 2014, he founded and led the Washington, DC-based New International Leadership Institute, a not-for profit organization dedicated to reforms, good governance and anti-corruption. Prior to that, he held the position of Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From early February 2011 to March 2013, he served as Ambassador of Georgia to the United States. Prior to his posting, he was Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister for Reintegration in the Government of Georgia.

Ambassador Yakobashvili is a career diplomat who joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia in 1991. He holds the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary granted by the President of Georgia.

He is a graduate of the Department of Physics from the Tbilisi State University. In 1998 he was trained in mid-career Diplomatic Courses at the Centre of Political and Diplomatic Studies at Oxford University. He is a Yale World Fellow (2002) and participated in the Executive Security Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (2004). In 2006, he was a visiting researcher at the Silk Road Study Centre of Uppsala University, Sweden.

Ambassador Yakobashvili co-founded and has served as an Executive Vice-President of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS), a leading think tank in the Caucasus region. He also co-founded the Atlantic Council of Georgia, as well as the Council of Foreign Relations of Georgia. He frequently contributes to international printed and digital media on issues of regional security and transformation.

In February 2012, Ambassador Yakobashvili was decorated with Presidential Medal of Excellence. He speaks Georgian, English, Russian and Hebrew.