David Litt
Ambassador David C. Litt served 34 years as a career U.S. diplomat, specializing in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. He was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Consul General in Dubai 10 years prior. Ambassador Litt was Political Advisor to U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. In addition to a tour as economic/commercial officer in Kabul, Afghanistan in the late 1970s, he served twice as political officer in Damascus, Syria.
Joining the Foreign Service in 1974, his other assignments included the U.S. Embassy in Niamey, Niger, and the Consulate General in Palermo, Italy. Among several other languages, he speaks Italian, French, Arabic, and Afghan-Persian (Dari). He is currently Adjunct Professor in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in Durham, NC. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 2008, he became Executive Director of the Center for Stabilization and Economic Reconstruction at the Institute for Defense and Business in Chapel Hill, NC. He retired from that position in August 2022. Litt was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and grew up in Miami, FL. He received a bachelor's degree with majors in history and French from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. At SAIS, he specialized in European affairs, economics and international law.