Press release – US Embassy, Banjul – The new ambassador of the United States to The Gambia, Sharon L Cromer, arrived in The Gambia on Monday, March 14, 2022. Ambassador Cromer was received at the Banjul International Airport by Ebou Sillah, chief of protocol, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Banjul Jason Willis. She is joined by her spouse, Arnold S Sobers Jr.
Ambassador Cromer was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as ambassador of the United States to The Gambia on 23rd June 2021, and was confirmed by the US Senate on 18th December 2021. She was sworn in as US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to The Gambia on 27th January 2022, in New York by the US Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Until her appointment as ambassador to The Gambia, Ambassador Cromer served as mission director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) at the US embassies in Accra, Ghana (2017-2021), Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (2013-2017), Abuja, Nigeria (2007-2009), and Accra, Ghana (2002-2007). In Washington, she served as the USAID senior deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau of Management (2009-2010), and as the acting senior deputy assistant administrator and acting assistant administrator in the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (2009). She also served as the USAID acting chief human capital officer and acting senior deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Human Capital and Talent Management (2016). Her other foreign assignments include Indonesia (1998-2002), Senegal (1991-1996), Ivory Coast (1990-1991), and Pakistan (1988-1990).
Ambassador Cromer graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and from Georgetown University Law Centre with a Juris Doctor degree. She is a recipient of a Presidential Rank Award, the USAID Administrator’s Reengineering Award, a State Department Superior Honour Award, and multiple performance awards for her more than three decades of service.
