WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden intends to nominate University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann to be U.S. ambassador to Germany, the White House announced Friday.
The move would make her Biden’s representative to one of America’s most important allies in Europe. Gutmann’s father fled Germany to escape Nazi rule and the Holocaust.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Gutmann would be the face of American policy in one of Europe’s most powerful countries, one that Biden hopes he can prod into more aggressive leadership on the continent, and in confronting Russia and China, according to foreign affairs experts.
Gutmann, 71, is Penn’s eighth president, serving as the leader of Philadelphia’s largest employer and one of its most prestigious institutions. She led the school since 2004 and previously held high-level positions at Princeton University, including provost and dean of the faculty. Her contract at Penn is set to expire next year.
Gutmann and Biden have personal ties.
After his time as vice president, Penn hired him as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor and created the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which focused on international affairs. He did several on-campus question-and-answer sessions with Gutmann in a job that paid more than $911,000 over roughly 2 1/2 years. Gutmann helped recruit Biden to the school, according to former Gov. Ed Rendell.
Ethics watchdogs and some career foreign service officials have long chafed at the bipartisan tradition of handing out high-profile ambassadorships to donors and other political allies.
The White House has said about 30% of its ambassador nominations will go to people with political ties, a figure in line with other recent presidents and lower than under former President Donald Trump.
Gutmann is among the earliest of Biden’s ambassador nominations.
The White House, in announcing her upcoming nomination, emphasized “her focus on global engagement” at Penn, noting the creation of the school’s Perry World House in Philadelphia, the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing, and the Biden Center in Washington.
Gutmann, the White House said, is an author and editor of 17 books, “many centered on understanding and defending constitutional democracy and human rights.”
People who know Gutmann and Biden have praised her as experienced, skilled and capable, and said the president values having people he trusts in such positions.
The majority of ambassador jobs are expected to go to career diplomats.
Gutmann may not be the only high-profile Philadelphian to represent the administration abroad. Longtime Comcast executive David L. Cohen, a major Biden fundraiser, is under consideration to be nominated to become ambassador to Canada.
