Mark Toner

Mark Toner is a career diplomat and member of the Senior Foreign Service at the rank of minister counselor. He is currently serving as the acting assistant secretary for global public affairs and will be the next U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Liberia. His most recent overseas post was as minister counselor for public diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France. Prior to that, he was the State Department senior advisor for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Toner also spent a year as a senior faculty advisor at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, a part of the National Defense University (DC). In 2017, Toner served as acting spokesperson for the Department of State under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He was the deputy spokesperson under the two previous secretaries of state, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. He has an M.S. in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (DC) and a B.A. in English literature from the University of Notre Dame (IN).