Amb. Kate Marie Byrnes, Department of State
Foreign Policy Advisor
Ambassador Kate Marie Byrnes arrived as the Civilian Deputy and Foreign Policy Advisor to U.S. European Command in November 2022.
A 30-year veteran of the U.S. diplomatic corps and a member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, she most recently served as the U.S. Ambassador to North Macedonia from July 2019-September 2022.
Her previous positions include Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece, 2017-2019, and Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, Austria, 2014-2017. From 2010-2011, she was a Senior Civilian Representative supervising governance and development in eastern Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force.
She served as Public Affairs Advisor at the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium, from 2007-2010. She also held positions at the Department of State Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs; the office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy; and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and represented U.S. interests overseas in Spain, Bolivia, Hungary and Turkey.
She has received the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, multiple Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor Awards, and an Expeditionary Service Award, from the U.S. Department of State, and two Meritorious Civilian Service Awards from the U.S. Department of the Army. She represented the Department of State as a Pearson Congressional Fellow from 2002-2003 and as an International Women’s Forum Leadership Foundation Fellow for 2012-2013.
A resident of Sarasota, Florida, she holds a Bachelor of Science (Foreign Service) in International Relations and a master’s degree in Policy Management, both from Georgetown University. She is married to retired Navy Capt. Larry Scott Gage.
