April Palmerlee

April Palmerlee was appointed CEO of AmCham in 2017 after an international career in government, education, and the corporate sector. American-born, she has lived in Sydney since 2003 and is a dual citizen. She is a member of Chief Executive Women and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Georgetown and a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University. In Australia, she has worked for the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, the Lowy Institute for International Policy, the Centre for Independent Studies, and Potomac Partners. In the US, she held the rank of Assistant Secretary at the Department of State with the remit for international women’s issues (the position is now called Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues). Before that, she was a senior executive at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She has also worked for Oscar de la Renta, The Bank Credit Analyst, and The Spanish Institute. She is on the boards of CIS, the United Way Australia, and Georgetown University Australian and New Zealand Centre. For over a decade, she has chaired Fulbright scholarship selection committees.