Keynote Speaker

Lew Lukens, former ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and senior partner, Signum Global Advisors

Lew Lukens is senior partner and U.K./Europe chief executive officer at Signum Global Advisors. He’s also head of Signum’s San Francisco office. Prior to joining the investment organization, he served for 30 years as a U.S. Foreign Service officer, representing the U.S. overseas across five administrations.

Among his many assignments, Lukens served as U.S. ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, deputy executive secretary to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, senior director at the National Security Council under Dr. Condoleezza Rice and former President George W. Bush and as U.S. consul general in Vancouver. Most recently, he was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy London in the U.K.

Lukens has also worked in Baghdad, Iraq; Dublin, Ireland; Sydney, Australia; Abidjan, Côte D'ivoire; and Guangzhou, China, as well as completing multiple tours in Washington. At the National Security Council, he helped to coordinate the U.S. government’s response to the 9/11 terror attacks.

Lukens has a bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University. In 2002, he was selected by the State Department and Princeton as a John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor and Lecturer of Public and International Affairs. He also has a master’s degree in public policy from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.