Diego Area

Diego Area is President and CEO of Global Americans, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank advancing a more prosperous, democratic, and interconnected Western Hemisphere. He is a Visiting Scholar at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management and a platform builder with experience designing and scaling cross-border initiatives at the intersection of policy, capital, and markets.

Prior to Global Americans, Area served as Director of Strategic Development and Partnerships at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, where he spearheaded strategies to promote constructive U.S. engagement with Latin America, managed the Center's corporate membership program with Fortune 500 partners, and led bipartisan congressional engagement to shape U.S.-LAC policy. He oversaw the creation of the Euro-Americas Forward Program, the Dominican Republic-US Working Group, the US-Chile Integration Program, and the Road to the Summit of the Americas partnership, among others.

Before being forced to flee Venezuela, Area served as Director of Social Development in the municipality of Sucre in Caracas, where he established a scholarship program awarding over 1,200 grants to low-income students, led an alternative dispute resolution program for violence prevention, and supported a network of community-managed childcare homes serving over 2,500 children.

In 2021, Area received GWU's Guardian of Democracy award. He was also selected for the National Endowment for Democracy's Penn Kemble Forum on Democracy fellowship.

Area holds a Master's degree in Political Management from The George Washington University and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. He is bilingual in English and Spanish.