Swanee Hunt is known globally as an author, diplomat, professor, and philanthropist. She began her civic work in Denver, Colorado, where in 1980 she created her family foundation, “Hunt Alternatives”. In its first decade, the foundation supported some 500 inner-city groups, most not grantees of larger foundations. Moving into systemic change, she led major initiatives for two Denver mayors and the Governor of Colorado, dealing with mental health reform, housing and homelessness, job creation, early education, racial justice, and more. In addition, she spawned a prominent state-wide foundation focused on women’s financial independence and opportunities for girls.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Hunt to a four-year term as the US Ambassador to Austria, where she concentrated on dozens of European nations reeling from the implosion of communism. She focused particularly on the ferocious war in the former Yugoslavia, during which she hosted successful negotiations to end a gruesome three-and-a-half-year genocide. Her endless advocacy reached the highest-level political, intelligence, and military leadership across Europe and Washington DC. To help stabilize the ruined country, she conceived numerous conferences and far-reaching projects that kindled hope crushed by the war. Those initiatives provided trees for denuded parks and start-up funds for multi-ethnic businesses led by women. She also collected mounds of books to restock burned out libraries, as well as a trainload of musical instruments for 22 shelled schools and orchestras.
Before leaving her four-year tenure, Ambassador Hunt convened a three-day “East Meets West” gathering of 320 influential women from 36 European countries. “Vital Voices: Women in Democracy” was keynoted, then adopted by Hillary Rodham Clinton (as First Lady, Senator, then Secretary of State). That organization has now worked with more than 20,000 women leaders around the globe.
Leaving the State Department, Ambassador Hunt founded the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where, as the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy, she has taught for more than two decades. She has spoken at universities worldwide (including Beijing, South Africa, Moscow, and London).
While at Harvard, she has shaped the worldview and careers of more than 800 graduate students, including several who went on to organize thousands of peers in a professional global network that is carrying forward her work.
While at Harvard, Dr. Hunt created the DC-based Institute for Inclusive Security, which has sparked the augmentation of global foreign policy to include influential women waging peace in fragile and violent regions. In
addition to collaborating with hundreds of diverse political leaders and think tanks, she has worked with broad-reaching organizations such as the United Nations, European Union, and NATO.
Swanee Hunt is an activist, theologian, reformer, rancher, composer, photographer, and inductee in the US Women’s Hall of Fame. Her scores of published articles stretch over a wide swath of years and topics. Frequent appearances in major media outlets and journals are augmented by four books: two providing insight into women’s intervention in all stages of war, the third, story-based analysis of the priorities and pitfalls of foreign policy, and a fourth using personal lessons garnered over her storied life.
Swanee’s world includes a menagerie of buffalo, yaks, cats, horses, llamas, parrots, and grandchildren.
