Alexa Wesner

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexa L. Wesner (2013)
Alexa Wesner at the first meeting with the Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger (2013)
Alexa Wesner with Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner (right) in April 2015

Alexa Lange Wesner (born May 4, 1972 in Washington, DC ) is an American entrepreneur and diplomat . She was the United States' Ambassador to Austria from 2013 to 2017 .

Life

Alexa Wesner was born in Washington, DC in 1972 to two European immigrants and grew up in Reston , Virginia . Her mother comes from Germany , her father from Latvia , which is why she also had the maiden name Alexa Lange. Alexa Lange was the first member of the family to attend an American high school, where she was voted an All-American athlete as a track and field athlete and won numerous national awards. She then went to the renowned Stanford University in California , where she obtained a bachelor's degree in biology in 1994 . During this time, Alexa Lange also worked at George Washington Hospital and Merrill Lynch before returning to Stanford to graduate.

Five days after graduating, Alexa Wesner moved to the Texas capital, Austin , to work at the technology startup Trilogy, initially as head of recruitment and later as head of marketing. Finally, in 1997, she started her own company called HireTECH , specializing in recruiting and consulting for high tech companies like Trilogy. Three years later, in 2000, she also started a web-based recruiting company called Recruiting Labs .

Political career

After she was professionally successful, Alexa Wesner began to become increasingly involved in politics. As a supporter of the Democratic Party , she donated around US $ 300,000 to democratic institutions, including around US $ 148,000 to the Democratic National Committee alone . She was also one of the earliest supporters of the later President Barack Obama in Texas. She herself donated $ 9,600 to Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and acted as a campaign bundler , which enabled her to contribute more than $ 500,000 to each of the two campaigns. In 2008 she also formed a Political Action Committee called Blue Texas (a nod to the Democratic party color), which spent nearly $ 1 million on campaigning that year.

After Obama's election as President of the United States , she appointed her to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities , an advisory body to the US President in 2009 . She also volunteered on the board of numerous non-profit organizations.

In a letter dated June 27, 2013, President Obama nominated Alexa Wesner as the United States Ambassador to Austria. She was confirmed by the United States Senate after a hearing and sworn in as ambassador on September 6, 2013. On September 12, 2013, she first arrived at her new job at the Embassy of the United States in Vienna and on October 22, 2013 presented the Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer with her official credentials, whereby she was accredited as Ambassador to Austria.

Almost three and a half years later, on January 20, 2017, Wesner resigned from office as ambassador to Austria at the end of the tenure of US President Obama and returned to the United States. Shortly before her departure, on January 13, 2017, Michael Linhart , the then Secretary General of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, presented her with the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold for services to the Republic of Austria, the second highest civilian award in the Republic of Austria. In May 2019, Alexa Wesner joined the board of directors of the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative , an American organization dedicated to protecting against attacks with weapons of mass destruction .

Private life

Alexa Wesner is married to investment banker Blaine Wesner and has three children with him. The family lives in Denver , Colorado .

Web links

Commons : Alexa L. Wesner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Matt Bewing: Ambassador to Austria: Who is Alexa Wesner? . Article on AllGov.com of October 20, 2013, accessed November 22, 2015.
  2. ↑ Barack Obama 2008 campaign Bundlers and Barack Obama 2012 campaign Bundlers on opensecrets.com.
  3. ↑ Christoph Prantner: Alexa Wesner becomes the new US ambassador in Vienna. derstandard.at, June 28, 2013, accessed on November 6, 2013 .
  4. ^ A b Conny Bischofberger : Would you like to return to the USA, Mrs. Ambassador? . Farewell interview in the Kronen Zeitung on January 14, 2017, accessed on January 19, 2017.
  5. ^ Ray A. Rothrock and Ambassador Alexa Wesner join NTI Board of Directors. In: NTI website. May 1, 2019, accessed May 3, 2019 .
predecessor Office successor
William Eacho US Ambassador to Austria from
2013 to 2017 		Trevor Traina
personal data
SURNAME Wesner, Alexa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wesner Lange, Alexa (full name); Lange, Alexa (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur and ambassador to Austria
DATE OF BIRTH May 4th 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC