The Aspen Institute mourns the passing of Secretary Madeleine K. Albright. A diplomat, professor, author, and business leader, she was the first female US Secretary of State—an iconic fixture in American foreign policy circles with a truly essential voice.
Secretary Albright served on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees starting in 2002. She founded the Aspen Ministers Forum to strengthen diplomatic ties between the US and Europe that same year and has since expanded the Forum to become a truly global group of ministers. She also helped establish Aspen Central Europe based in Prague in 2012 and was recognized in 2011 as the recipient of the Institute’s Henry Crown Leadership Award.
Secretary Albright leaves an enormous legacy as a longtime champion of freedom, justice, and equity around the world. All of us who had the good fortune and grace to know her, or to be in her presence, understood her to be a warm, caring, and people-centered human being as well as a deeply principled and towering public servant. The entire Aspen Institute community extends to her daughters, family, friends, and all who knew and served with her our heartfelt sympathies and profound gratitude for her decades of leadership.
