Terence P. McCulley

Ambassador (retired) Terence “Terry” McCulley, Senior Managing Director, leads the Africa practice at McLarty Associates, drawing upon nearly four decades of experience working across the African continent.

As a former U.S. Ambassador to Mali, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire, he helps clients navigate Sub-Saharan Africa’s increasingly important but challenging markets. He is based in Washington, DC, and Bellingham, WA.

Throughout a three-decade career with the U.S. Department of State, Ambassador McCulley served three times as Ambassador, and also as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at U.S. Embassies in Togo, Senegal, and Tunisia, and also in Denmark. In Washington, he worked on Central African affairs during the Rwanda genocide, and from 2004 to 2005, he helped to coordinate reconstruction efforts in Iraq. His earlier diplomatic postings include Niger, South Africa and Chad, and Mumbai, India.

Ambassador McCulley is the recipient of four Department of State Superior Honor Awards, and he has been decorated as a commander of the national orders of Mali and Côte d’Ivoire by President Amadou Toumani Touré and President Alassane Ouattara.

As the Senior Advisor for Africa at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York in 2016, 2017, and 2018, Ambassador McCulley advanced U.S. multilateral objectives during the annual sessions of the UN General Assembly.

At McLarty Associates, Ambassador McCulley has:

• Helped a major U.S. transportation company explore market entry in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country;
• Brokered partnerships in Africa for a Korean mobile payments platform;
• Provided insight and analysis on key African markets for one of the world’s largest retailers;
• Supported a 750-million-euro French investment fund as it built out projects across Africa;
• Advised a major extractive industry firm as it sought a strategic partnership with the U.S. government;
• Assisted a U.S. technology and transportation company in establishing operations in West Africa.

Ambassador McCulley received a BA in European History and French Language and Literature from the University of Oregon. As a Rotary Foundation Graduate Fellow, he studied Political Science at the Université de Haute Bretagne in Rennes, France, and attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is fluent in French.