Kenneth Bacon

Kenneth Bacon has served as president of Refugees International since early 2001. An expert in international affairs and security issues, Mr. Bacon has concentrated on expanding Refugees International’s capacity to promote more effective ways for the international community to meet the needs of refugees and displaced people. Mr. Bacon is the co-chairman of the Partnership for Effective Peace Operations, and he serves on the boards of The American University in Cairo, Population Action International and InterAction. He is an emeritus trustee of Amherst College and the Folger Shakespeare Library and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He has published articles and op-ed pieces on humanitarian issues in a number of publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and World Policy Journal.

Prior to working at RI, Mr. Bacon was Assistant Secretary, Public Affairs, at the U.S. Department of Defense and served as Pentagon spokesman from 1994-2001. From 1969 to 1994, he was a reporter, editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal based in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Amherst College and an MBA and MA in Journalism from Columbia University. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1968 to 1974.