Frederick Kempe

Infobox Person
name = Frederick Kempe


image_size = 300
caption = Fred Kempe, Atlantic Council President
birth_date = birth date and age|1954|9|5
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
education = University of Utah
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
occupation = CEO, author, journalist
title = President and CEO
spouse = Pamela Meyer
parents =
children = Johanna
nationality = United States
website = [http://www.acus.org Atlantic Council of the United States]

Frederick Kempe (born September 5, 1954) is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council of the United States, a foreign policy think tank and public policy group based in Washington, D.C. He is an award-winning journalist, author, and columnist and a regular commentator on television and radio both in Europe and the United States. He has recently been in the news because of an Atlantic Council report on Afghanistan [cite news | last= Tyson| first =Ann Scott| title =NATO's Not Winning in Afghanistan, Report Says| work =Washington Post| page =A18| date =2008-01-31| url =http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/30/AR2008013004314.html | accessdate =2008-03-18 ] and comments in the European press about the American election. [cite news | last =Seib| first =Gerald| coauthors =Murray, Sara| title =Political Perceptions: Let the Veepstakes Begin| work =Wall Street Journal| date =2008-02-18| url =http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/02/18/political-perceptions-let-the-veepstakes-begin/?mod=googlenews_wsj| accessdate =2008-03-18 ]

Kempe has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Council since December 1, 2006 and is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University's Saïd Business School.

Prior to assuming his position at the Atlantic Council, he spent nearly thirty years with the Wall Street Journal, where he won national and international prizes while serving in numerous management and reportorial capacities—editor, associate publisher, columnist and correspondent. He was most recently assistant managing editor, International, and "Thinking Global" columnist. He was previously for seven years the longest serving editor and associate publisher ever of the Wall Street Journal Europe and was European editor for the global Wall Street Journal from 2002 to 2005, also overseeing Middle Eastern reporting.

During his time as editor and associate publisher, the newspaper won a number of awards including the prestigious Harold Wincott Award as U.K. Business Journal of the Year, the Media Tenor Award as the top international paper in Europe, and multiple "Business Journalist of the Year" prizes from the World Leadership Forum in London. His teams won two Pulitzer Prizes. As managing editor from 1992–1997, he created the Central European Economic Review and co-founded Convergence, a magazine on Europe’s digital economy.

As a reporter, Kempe covered a number of significant stories, including the rise of Solidarity in Poland and the growing resistance to Soviet rule, the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia and all his summit meetings with Ronald Reagan, war reporting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon in the 1980s and the American invasion of Panama. He also covered the unification of Germany and the collapse of Soviet Communism.

Kempe has written three books that have been published in several languages: " [http://www.amazon.com/Divorcing-Dictator-Americas-Bungled-Noriega/dp/0399135170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208548684&sr=1-1 Divorcing the Dictator: America's Bungled Affair with Noriega] " (Putnam, 1990), " [http://www.amazon.com/Siberian-Odyssey-Voyage-Into-Russian/dp/B000O1VDL0/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208548684&sr=1-8 Siberian Odyssey: A Voyage into the Russian Soul] " (Putnam, 1992), and " [http://www.amazon.com/Father-Land-Frederick-Kempe/dp/0399144978 Father/Land, a Personal Search for the New Germany] " (Putnam, 1999). He is currently working on a fourth on Cold War Berlin.

He has been a frequent television and radio commentator for, among others, CNBC, the BBC and German radio and television and was until recently a regular columnist for Bloomberg News. [cite news | last =Kempe| first =Frederick| title =Clinton, McCain, Obama Dominate Europe's Halls| work =bloomberg.com| publisher =Bloomberg L.P.| date =2008-02-14| url =http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=acC1HxP.hspE | accessdate =2008-03-18 ] He has won the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism's top alumni achievement award and the University of Utah's prize for the top young alumnus. In 2002, the European Voice, the leading publication following EU affairs, picked Kempe as one of the 50 most influential Europeans, although he is American, and one of the four leading journalists in Europe. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland University College and from Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Kempe is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a Master’s Degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a member of the International Fellows program in the School of International Affairs. He serves on a number of Boards of Directors including the [http://www.aicgs.org/ American Institute for Contemporary German Studies] (AICGS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.; the Aspen Institute Berlin in Germany; the Overseas Press Club in New York; and is on the advisory board of the Transatlantic Policy Network. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kempe speaks German fluently and is the son of German immigrants who came to the United States before World War II. His wife, Pamela Meyer, is chief executive officer of Simpatico Networks. They live with their daughter, Johanna, in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

* [http://www.amclub.ch/FREDERICK%20KEMP1.rtf American International Club of Geneva]
* [http://www.slate.com/id/2155060/ Slate Magazine]
* [http://www.gmfus.org/brusselsforum/template/bio_detail.cfm?id=38 Brussels Forum] biography
* [http://acus.org/about-people-kempe.asp Atlantic Council of the United States] biography