President Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Robert William Forden as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia. On June 22, 2022, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee received the nomination.
Robert Forden is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor. He currently serves as a Senior Advisor in the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission and also Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim of the U.S. Embassy in the People’s Republic of China.
Earlier, Forden was the Deputy Director of the American Institute in Taiwan and before that the Economic Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was also Deputy Economic Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and, in Washington, the Deputy Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Among his other assignments, Forden was Chief of the Kaohsiung Branch of the American Institute in Taiwan and an Economic Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam. Forden earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He speaks Chinese (Mandarin) and Vietnamese.
