Were honored to have them here today. A special welcome to our commissioners of the Advisory Commission for Public Diplomacy, chairman farar, vice chairman bill hible and commissioner ann weidner. Today, as you know, under the auspices of the Advisory Commission weve called a Public Meeting to look at the question of the gpa, the newly formed gpa. And where it fits into state departments vision for Public DiplomacyGoing Forward in the 21st century. And as vivian walker, executive director, it is my honor to open this event. Before i turn the mic over to my colleague for opening comments, i just want to tell you a little bit about how things are going to go today. Mr. Farar will give us brief comments and well turn it over to our principal speakers. Theyll speak in a tagteam formation. At the end of their presentation well be happy to take your questions and comments. Please hold your questions and comments until they have finished their presentation. For the moderated q a session, there will be a microphone. Please speak into the microphone as you ask your questions because this whole event, to include not only the remarks but your questions and our answers are part of a transcript that will be part of the public record. So its very important we capture your questions so that we can reflect them accurately. And with that it it is my great pleasure to turn over to chairman farar. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thanks to special guest, sherri mueller, and adam. Im pleased to be joined by my distinguished colleagues, bill hibble, vice chairman from colorado springs, colorado, and ann weidner from chicago, illinois. For 70 years the commission has advised on u. S. Governments Global Information media, cultural and Education Exchange perhaps. It is a bipartisan and independent body created by congress in 1948 to assess and recommend policies and programs in support of all u. S. Governments to understand, inform and influence foreign publics, particularly but not limited to the work of the u. S. Department of state and the u. S. Agency for global media. The commissions mandated by law to report its findings and recommendations to the president of the United States. Congress, secretary of state and, of course, the american people. The commissions comprehensive annual report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting is the acpds premiere product. It compiles and analyzes pd Data Collected from over 20 state Department Offices and other u. S. Government agencies. It includes carefully considered recommendations from the commission for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the u. S. Governments pd programs. Since fiscal year 2013 the commission has made 112 recommendations, roughly 55 of which have been implemented or in the process of being implemented, resulting in improved operational efficiencies and program effectiveness. Indeed, one of these recommendations and the reason radioer here today is the proposed merger of bureau of Public Affairs into what is now known as bureau of global Public Affairs. The gpas creation has been described as the largest restructuring of the state Department Since the merger of the u. S. Information agency and department of state 20 years ago. Its hard to believe its gone by that quickly. Were very fortunate to have the assistant secretary of state as well as gpas Principle Deputy assistant secretary nicole both here today to help us understand what the new gpa looks like and where it fits into the departments Broader Vision of Public Diplomacy. The commission appreciates this opportunity to learn about Program Changes under way and challenges remaining and the ways in which the commission and Public Diplomacy community can support this effort. Again, thank you all for joining us here today. Now im pleased to invite assistant secretary of state michele to speak followed by Principal Deputy secretary of state nicole. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Its a pleasure to be here today. Thank you for the acpd for hosting us. We were joking, im a ucla bruin but love be yeah, go, bruins, but love being involved with the program as well. Very excited to talk to you today. As you know, theres never been a more can you hear me . There we go. Better . Not better. Can you hear me now . All right. Never been a more exciting or important time for Public Diplomacy and communications and how the United States is communicating both policy and values in every corner of the world. And so in this type of media environment and this type of Foreign Policy environment, the thinking we put behind this merger and the intent behind it was to make sure that we can accelerate and really deliver on what were charged with doing previously both from p a and effectively communicate around the world. We know the Communications Landscape is fast accelerating. Theres a new platform popping up. Tech is driving a lot of change when it comes to communication. Theres vr, ar, ai. The report in 2017 about whether or not Public Diplomacy can survive the internet was a good indication of where things are going and coming fast. We know business and media and culture and entertainment and government are all colliding, right . They dont sit in separate worlds anymore. These are all integrated. We need to communicate in that type of environment where things that we do from a government perspective also impact culture and vice versa. And we know that the Foreign Policy issues were dealing with on any given day are most, if not all, multiregional, multinational in nature. We have to look at things through a lens, a global lens, to really communicate effectively and think about all the audiences that were trying to reach. In that type of environment, again, our focus was really to bring together it the best of both worlds from Public Affairs, from aaip, the strengths that both of them had to really accelerate and enhance the United States to compete in the world today. It wasnt an internaldriven thing. It was an externaldriven thing. We have to lead and be successful in the world today. Being able to do that meant integrating, again, the strengths and best of both worlds from ap and pna. So the domestic focus and foreign focus. How do we think about both of those . And thinking about policy and values. Theres a Foreign Policy piece that pa was transitiditionally focused on. Theres a valuesdriven that aip was doing to international audiences. How do we think about those in communicating america to the world . And really talk about the values that make america unique and part of our long standing history. The rule of law, religious freedom, individual liberty, things like that. We know this wasnt the first time a merger was explored or thought about. The acp put together a recommendation a number of years ago. We had conversations with alumni from the state department within and without who have currently previously explored iterations of the merger before to inform our thinking. And so the difference this time we think was the external world. Theres an urgency to the ability or to the need for the United States to be able to communicate effectively. Wanted to make sure to deliver on that. We had tremendous amount of support in leadership from secretary pompeo, who from day one has made sure to empower the state Department Team to make the changes and lead to do our jobs most effectively. We knew we had that support going into this. Nicole will talk a little more about the how and how we accomplished the merger. Our areas of focus in bringing together the best of both worlds really were, first and foremost, integration. Ive used that word a lot. But how are we bringing together the best of both worlds . The strengths from story telling and communicating values and in understanding of foreign audiences and working with posts to understand the audiences on the ground, the culture and the language and the narrative on the ground and bring that into our story telling. And then the Public Affair strengths from Strategic Communications, communicating policy, the realtime environment, how are we thinking about both of those together. Secondly, we placed a very emphasis on data and research and insights and analytics. One of the Opportunities Technology has provided us and Digital Communications has provided us is being able to measure, in some cases real time, how effectively and quickly were communicating on any given issue. As well as longterm Audience Research on how overtime we are making an impact, which the acpd i know has explored for a number of years. We placed a really big emphasis on how are we putting data and insights at the core of communicating to be able to not only measure at the back end how were communicating but really inform when were designing a strategy and our communications and our message, how were communicating. So, were informing at the beginning, were measuring along the way and improving in real time as close to as close to realtime as possible. Speed was another focus of ours. We know the new cycle is moving instantaneously. How are we working together quickly to be able to deliver on that, to get our message out to make sure the truth is out there before some counternarratives from other folks out there in the world so were being effective and fast with how were communicating, in addition to the longterm communications and values that were communicating over time. Lastly, we really focused on futureproofing the bureau. We didnt want to design a bureau just for 2019 or 2018, really, when we started it, but 2019, right . We wanted to make sure were setting ourselves up for success for five, ten years down the line and that means having written into our structure the way we work a focus on exploring new platforms, new technologies, best practices, not only on technology but inperson communications and relationshipbuilding. How are we futureproofing so were constantly changing and a the Communications Landscape in the world today. So that was a really big focus of ours. Our ip has had a great strength in doing that over the course of the last few years so we wanted to make sure that was still part of the culture in the merger. So it was a very clollaborative and deliberate effort. Nicole will talk about how we made this happen. It was a large exercise in collaboration together. Really important opportunity for us to work with folks all across the department with the acpd and other external stake holders as well. So ill turn it over to nicole to explain more. Sure. So im really happy to be here and to be able to talk to you about the how that we put this together. Michelle had laid out the vision behind the merger, behind the creation of the bureau of Public Affairs. Let me get in the weeds and talk to you about the how. So last year, we pulled together a working group with michelle had mentioned with represe representatives from across the department. Included iip and pa colleagues. We made sure to have colleagues from big hr at the department to make sure we were considering all of the hr potential issues. Colleagues from our Budget Office so we were thinking about what the budget might look like and senior pd professionals so we could get the benefit of their experience. Got it. And incorporate their thoughts into this. So we gave the team a basic framework then leaned on them to put a plan together. First, they were to focus on Strategic Communications. That was the purpose of the new bureau and the merger. But also to to look at all the capable theties in iip and pa and think about where if they didnt fit into a Strategic Communications bureau, where might they be successfully housed within the state the president . The merger was to be budget friendly. We were trying to future proof this. We wanted to build a structure that would last into the future that wasnt based on personalities or anything like that. But a structure that really would last into the future and we wanted to make the best use of all of our employees skills and abilities, to make sure they ended up in places they could utilize their talents. So they put a plan together. We looked at it and continued to consult throughout the department. We talked to acpd. Engaged our legal colleagues to make sure we could communicate to domestic and foreign audiences. We continued to engage with budget and Human Resources to make sure we were thinking about all those issues and make sure that we had all of the details right because really as you know, the devil is in the details. Thats the hard part. We did some initial briefs to the hill. And to the employee unions to see what their concerns might be and incorporate any feedback. Thep we started working on implementation. We started the hard work of implementing the changes. Through that, we set up working groups to elicit broad participation from the workforce. We wanted to make sure folks had the opportunity to have their voices heard. That we were taking into consideration their thoughts as we were moving forward with implementation. We prioritized regular communication. Michelle and i sent out regular communications talking about the process. Talking about what was going to happen. We took input from the field and sent out a survey to Public Diplomacy professionals so see how themted the partner with the new bureau and what they had valued most from the old iip and pa. So we could think b about what we wanted to continue in the new bureau. The emphasis during the period was on communication and continues to be. We are now fully functional. We have been for about three months. So were still fairly new, but were continuing to focus on communication within the bureau and within the state department. To make sure our colleagues here dmesically and at posts around the world understand what a p t partner we can be in communicating about American Values and Foreign Policy priorities. We recognize the posts are often best equipped to communicate about the bilateral relationship, but that we have a d d distimgt advantage in communicating about the key priorities on American Values. Thats where our comparative advantage exists. So we will continue to engage. The its part o tthe ongoing planning and well continue to engage with others as well. This engagement here is part of spreading the word about what the new bureau will do. We hope to continue working with acpd and see you know how we may continue to improve our communications at state department. Thank you. One of the things nicole touched on before we turn it over to questions is this idea of continuing to engage and improve. So one of the things we talk ed about with our team members in this process has been what our values are. And one of the core values to global Public Affairs is change because we know that the world outside of us is changing quickly because of technology and because of the way that the world is accelerating. So we have tried to put that at the center of how were communicating to our team, which is change is going to be required if were going to keep up and be effective at what we do. So were trying to engrain that as part of our culture and know that we didnt solve everything right away or that this isnt how its, its not a static thing, right . Our team is going to have f to keep evolving and learning and changing and the bureau is going to have to keep evolving and learning and changing to make sure were able to deliver on our objective, which is to communicate on behalf of the United States. We even made that clear when we were working with hr at the department. There were going to continue to be changes and tweaks to make the bureau as effective as it can be. All right. Thank you both for coming together. And for such incredible news. Congratulations on changing a major piece of f a strongly engrained bureaucracy. No small feat and youve done it is grace and competence. Were going to take questions from the audience about the new bureau. I want to start off with a softball. It seems like maybe final ly th creation has elevated pd function to a place where it has more respect nsds of the state department. Something that i know because i was a young usia officer back in the ta. And maybe now youve been able to create a status and career focus that didnt exist before. So maybe you guys could comment on that. I think that we hope that to be true and certainly think that the Energy Around this and the impact makes it true. Policy priorities, things at the center of the conversation now, while we are still communicating longterm across the field and the world. So i think ive been at the state department for a year and a half. Even in that short amount of time, from time that i joined until now, the way in which p drk has been elevated and is seen as central not only to communicating values, but to achieving and accomplishing policy objectives has become more apparent to folks inside and outside of