Kent Lucken
International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Experience
Kent Lucken is a Managing Director at Citi Private Bank in Boston and serves as the firm's North American Head of Financial Sponsors. In this capacity, he provides global wealth management solutions to financial entrepreneurs and the private equity and hedge funds they operate. Prior to joining Citi, Kent worked at Robertson Stephens Investment Bank.
Kent is a fourteen-year veteran of the US Foreign Service, where he completed diplomatic assignments at the US embassies in Italy, Russia, Georgia, Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he served as the first US diplomat in the newly independent Republic of Georgia. He also participated in the Dayton peace talks while assigned to the former Yugoslavia. Kent has served as a Foreign Policy Advisor for Governor Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, and worked as a Political Advisor for two Iowa Caucuses.
Kent is the President of the US-Asia Institute, a Washington, DC based non-profit focused on building stronger relations with Asia, and he serves on the boards of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University, and Iowa State University's Board of Governors. He has represented the US as an OSCE International Observer at national elections in the Republic of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, and he has been a featured commentator on foreign affairs for the New York Times, National Public Radio, and the Boston Globe.
Kent earned his Master's in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, and graduated with a BA in Political Science from Iowa State University. He also completed studies at Georgetown University's Institute of Comparative Political and Economic Systems. His wife, Kristen, is a professor at Brandeis University, and they have two sons.
