Roberta Jacobson, Cecilia Malmström Elected Chair and Vice Chair of MPI Board of Trustees

WASHINGTON, DC — Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta S. Jacobson and former European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström today were elected chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) Board of Trustees.

“It’s an honor to become the chair of this one-of-a-kind organization that is doing essential analysis and policy design to respond to key immigration challenges in the United States and globally,” said Jacobson, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and former assistant secretary for western hemisphere affairs. “Cecilia and I look forward to setting an ambitious vision for MPI’s future along with our fellow trustees.”

At its meeting today, the board formally re-elected Malcolm Brown treasurer and Elisa Massimino secretary. Now retired from the Canadian Federal Public Service, Brown was deputy minister of public safety. Massimino is executive director of Georgetown University Law Center’s Human Rights Institute and former president and CEO of Human Rights First.

The board also bid farewell to three long-time trustees: outgoing Chair Lidia Soto-Harmon, president and CEO of the Student Conservation Association; outgoing Vice Chair Warren R. Leiden, partner emeritus at Berry, Appleman & Leiden; and Louis Freedberg, a principal at California Media Collective and executive director emeritus of EdSource.

“All of us at MPI owe a huge debt of gratitude to Lidia, Warren and Louis for their exceptional service and many years of valued guidance,” said MPI President Andrew Selee. “They have been wise counselors, and their leadership and strategic vision have strengthened the institute and its work in countless ways.”

Three new members joined the board at today’s meeting:

• Juan José Gómez-Camacho, senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a former Mexican diplomat who concluded his 34-year diplomatic career as Mexico’s ambassador to Canada (2019-22) and the United Nations (2016-19). He was one of two co-chairs presiding over the drafting, negotiation and adoption of the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

• Emily Margarethe Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States from 2018-23 and a career foreign service officer, including serving as state secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior where she oversaw security and migration at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. She was the first woman to serve as Germany’s ambassador to the United States, as well as the first to be appointed political director and later state secretary of the Foreign Office.
   
• Gerald D. Jaynes, A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, African American Studies and Urban Studies at Yale University. An expert on race relations and the economic conditions of African Americans, Jaynes chaired Yale’s Department of African and African American Studies (1990-96) and has served in many public capacities such as Study Director of the Committee on the Status of Black Americans at the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C.

“As we say goodbye to Lidia, Warren and Louis and thank them for their thoughtful and incredible service, we are so delighted to welcome Emily, Juan José and Gerald, who have distinguished careers in the worlds of diplomacy, public policy, academia and research,” said Malmström, a former European commissioner for trade (2014-19) and home affairs (2010-14) who is now global outlook senior advisor at Lindholmen Science Park, Göteborg. “Their experiences and insights will prove invaluable to the board and to MPI.”

For more on the Board of Trustees, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/about/trustees.