Jennifer Park Stout

Early life and education Stout was born in Washington D.C.; she is the great-granddaughter of Park Eun-sik. She has a B.A. from James Madison University and an M.A. in International Affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Career Stout has served as senior advisor and director of Senate affairs in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the State Department. She worked on Capitol Hill for 11 years, as a legislative aide to then-senator Joe Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1998), with Senator Patrick Leahy on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, and also as foreign-policy advisor to Senator Jim Webb, and Representative Jim Moran.

She was chief of staff to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel. Before that, she was special assistant to the president in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. From 2010 to 2012, she served as deputy assistant secretary in the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau at the State Department. After that job she served as vice president of international government relations for MetLife from 2012 to 2013. In March 2015 she was appointed to be deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry. She served on the board of governors of the East-West Center from 2018 through 2021.