The U.S. Government has announced the appointment of H.E. Robert William Forden as new Ambassador to Cambodia in replacement H.E. W. Patrick Murphy.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s recent statement, H.E. Robert William Forden is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor. Most recently, he worked as a Senior Advisor in the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau of the U.S. Department of State.

Prior to that he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission, and also as Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the U.S. Embassy in the People’s Republic of China. Prior to that, H.E. Robert William Forden was the Deputy Director of the American Institute in Taiwan and before that the Economic Counsellor of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.

H.E. Robert William Forden was also Deputy Economic Counsellor of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and, in Washington, was the Deputy Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
. His demonstrated success as a leader, coupled with almost three decades of work in and on Asia as a career diplomat, make him a well-qualified candidate to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Among his other assignments, H.E. Robert William Forden was Chief of the Kaohsiung Branch of the American Institute in Taiwan, an Economic Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, and an Economic Officer in the Special Trade Activities Division of the Multilateral Trade Affairs Office in the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

H.E. Robert William Forden earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the recipient of a Presidential Rank Award (Meritorious) and numerous State Department performance awards. He speaks Chinese (Mandarin) and Vietnamese.

Source: Agence Kampuchea Presse