President Biden Announces 10 Key Nominations

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following 10 individuals to serve in key roles:

• David R. Gilmour, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
• Scott Miller, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Confederation and to the Principality of Liechtenstein
• Marc R. Stanley, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Argentine Republic
• Sam Bagenstos, Nominee for General Counsel, Department of Health and Human Services
• Melissa Dalton, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security Affairs, Department of Defense
• Alexia Latortue, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Markets, Department of the Treasury
• Brent Neiman, Nominee for Deputy Under Secretary / Designated Assistant Secretary for International Finance and Development, Department of the Treasury
• Alice Albright, Nominee for Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Todd Harper, Nominee for Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration
• Owen Hernstadt, Nominee for Member of the Board of Directors, Export-Import Bank

David R. Gilmour, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
David R. Gilmour, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, is the Chargé d’Affaires a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in N’Djamena, Chad.  He is a former U.S. Ambassador to the Togolese Republic.  He has served in the Bureau of African Affairs at the Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Africa, Director of East African Affairs, and Director of Public Diplomacy for Africa.  He was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassies in Panama and Malawi, and Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Mission in Geneva.  Other overseas assignments include Australia, Costa Rica, South Africa and Cameroon.  He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Partnership Excellence Award from the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Partnerships.  Gilmour received a B.A. from Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, and an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.  He speaks French and Spanish.

Scott Miller, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Confederation and to the Principality of Liechtenstein
Scott Miller is an LGBTQ rights activist and philanthropist.  As co-chair of the Gill Foundation’s board of directors, Miller directs the foundation’s national giving strategy to advance LGBTQ equality, including public education campaigns to ban conversion therapy and end discrimination against LGBTQ Americans.  At the foundation, Miller also oversees local efforts to ensure equal opportunity for all Coloradans, including generous support for K-12 STEM education at numerous Colorado public schools.  During the pandemic, Miller led efforts to provide over 5.6 million meals to tens of thousands of his fellow Coloradans to alleviate food insecurity.  Together Miller and his husband, Tim Gill, are among the top contributors to LGBTQ equality issues in the United States.  Previously, Miller served as an account vice president at UBS Wealth Management in Denver, Colorado.  Miller earned a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in business administration from the University of Colorado Boulder.  Upon graduation, he started his career as a management consultant for Accenture, followed by work as an event planner for global clientele.

Marc R. Stanley, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Argentine Republic
Marc R. Stanley is President of the Stanley Law Group and a board-certified civil trial lawyer in Dallas, Texas.  A former president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Dallas Trial Lawyers Association, Stanley has served in leadership positions in dozens of local and national charitable and civic organizations throughout his career.  He was a Council Member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and a Member of the Board of Visitors at the United States Air Force Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.   He served for four years as Chairman of the Texas Public Finance Authority and was Co-Chair of the Mayor’s Complete Count Outreach Committee for the U.S Census (City of Dallas).  Stanley earned a B.B.A. at George Washington University, and a J.D. at the University of Texas-Austin.  He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Tikkun Olam Award by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Sam Bagenstos, Nominee for General Counsel, Department of Health and Human Services
Samuel R. Bagenstos currently serves as General Counsel to the Office of Management and Budget.  He is on leave from his position as the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School.  From 2009 to 2011, Bagenstos served as a political appointee in the Obama-Biden Administration’s Department of Justice, where he was Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.  Pursuant to an appointment by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, he chaired the Michigan Employment Relations Commission from 2019 to 2021.  An expert in civil rights law, Bagenstos wrote the leading law school casebook on disability rights law and has engaged with state Medicaid systems as a lawyer, advocate, and consultant to promote community-based services for individuals with disabilities.  He has argued four cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, including key matters under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Young v. UPS, a case that established new protections for pregnant workers.  A graduate of the University of North Carolina and the Harvard Law School, Bagenstos clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Melissa Dalton, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security Affairs, Department of Defense
Melissa G. Dalton is currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities at the U.S. Department of Defense. She is responsible for advising the Secretary of Defense and other senior defense leaders on national security and defense strategy; the forces, contingency plans, and associated posture necessary to implement the defense strategy; nuclear deterrence and missile defense policy; and security cooperation plans and policies. Prior to her appointment to the Biden-Harris Administration in January 2021, Ms. Dalton was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) International Security Program and director of the Cooperative Defense Project. Her CSIS research focused on reinforcing the principled foundations of U.S. defense strategy and military operations, including the responsible role of the U.S. military in Defense Support of Civil Authorities. Prior to joining CSIS in 2014, Ms. Dalton served for a decade as a career civil servant in the Bush and Obama Administrations at DoD. Her assignments included senior advisor for force planning, special assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, policy adviser to the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan, and country director for Lebanon and Syria in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. She also served as an intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Alexia Latortue, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Markets, Department of the Treasury
Alexia Latortue is Deputy Chief Executive Offer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation where she helps shape MCC’s strategic vision, oversees the agency’s operations to deliver on programmatic priorities and leads the team. Ms. Latortue has over 20 years of experience in international development, with a focus on development finance, policy and making markets work for all people. Her work has covered private sector development, financial systems development, climate, infrastructure and economic inclusion.

Ms. Latortue was previously Managing Director for Corporate Strategy and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Prior to joining the EBRD, she served as the Obama-Biden Administration as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Development Policy at the Department of the Treasury, advancing inclusive growth and poverty reduction internationally through the multilateral development banks. Previously, Ms. Latortue spent 10 years with the World Bank where her last assignment was Deputy CEO of CGAP, a unit dedicated to advancing financial inclusion. She began her career with Development Alternatives, Inc.

Ms. Latortue earned a M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a B.S. from Georgetown University.

Brent Neiman, Nominee for Deputy Under Secretary / Designated Assistant Secretary for International Finance and Development, Department of the Treasury
Brent Neiman is the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. His teaching and research focus on international macroeconomics, finance, and trade. He is a co-founder of the Global Capital Allocation Project and serves as the director of the Initiative on International Economics at the Becker Friedman Institute and a co-director of the Initiative for Global Markets at Chicago Booth. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, and is an associate editor of The American Economic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and The Journal of International Economics.

Neiman previously served as the staff economist for international finance on the White House Council of Economic Advisers and has worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, at McKinsey and Company, and at the McKinsey Global Institute. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s degree in mathematical modelling from Oxford University, where he was a Thouron Scholar, and received his PhD in economics from Harvard University.

Alice Albright, Nominee for Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
Alice Albright serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education, a multilateral partnership and fund dedicated to improving education outcomes for the most marginalized children in low income countries. Before joining GPE, Ms. Albright served in the Obama-Biden Administration from 2009 to 2013 as the Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. From 2001 to 2009, Ms. Albright served as the Chief Financial and Investment Officer for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. While there, Ms. Albright led GAVI’s innovative finance efforts, including the launch the International Finance Facility for Immunization, a program to enhance GAVI’s ability to finance the purchase of vaccines. Previously, Ms. Albright worked as a banker with a focus on emerging markets and held a variety of positions at Citicorp, Bankers Trust Company, JP Morgan, and the Carlyle Group.

Ms. Albright has served on a number of boards and working groups in the development, education, and gender arenas. Currently, she serves on the UK’s G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, the Board of Williams College, and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has been decorated as an Officier de L’Order de L’Etalon by President Kabore and a Commandeur, Ordre National du Lion by President Macky Sall.

Ms. Albright graduated from Williams College with a BA in History, with honors, and received an MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Todd Harper, Nominee for Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration
Todd Harper has specialized in financial services policy during his more than 25 years of government service and has led the NCUA Board as Chairman since January 2021. He also chairs the interagency Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. Mr. Harper joined the NCUA Board in April 2019 and is the first NCUA staffer to become a Board Member and Chairman. From 2011 to 2017, he led the agency’s Office of Public and Congressional Affairs and served as the chief policy advisor to two NCUA Chairmen. Previously, as staff director for the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Harper contributed to the efforts after the financial crisis to enact the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. As legislative director to former Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, he also worked on bipartisan legislation concerning credit union capital rules, terrorism risk insurance, auditing standards and subprime mortgage lending. A member of the LGBTQ community, Mr. Harper earned an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.S. with high distinction in business analysis from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

Owen Hernstadt, Nominee for Member of the Board of Directors, Export-Import Bank
Owen Herrnstadt is the Chief of Staff to the International President and Director of Trade and Globalization at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. As Chief of Staff, he assists in running one of the largest manufacturing and transportation unions in the United States. As Director of Trade and Globalization, he develops policy for international trade, economic investment, international labor standards, and human rights matters. He also teaches employment and labor law at the Georgetown University Law Center and has taught international employment and labor at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Mr. Herrnstadt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Independent Mexico Labor Expert Board, U.S. Export-Import Bank Federal Advisory Committee, and the U.S. State Department Federal Advisory Committee on International Economics. He also served as Co-Chair of the State Department’s Stakeholder Advisory Board on OECD Guidelines and  as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Baltimore Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He has testified, written articles and made presentations on labor and employment law, international employment and labor law, corporate social responsibility, trade, manufacturing policy, human rights, and industrial relations in the U.S. and abroad.