Kathleen Lively is a career American diplomat currently serving as U.S. Consul General in Melbourne, Australia. Ms. Lively was the Minister Counselor for Management Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya from 2019 – 2021. Prior to that, she served three years as the Dean of the Foreign Service Institute’s School of Applied Information Technology. Ms. Lively has also represented the United States in Romania, The United Kingdom, Japan, Poland and Afghanistan.

In Washington, she worked for the Undersecretary for Management and in the Bureau of Information Resource Management. She started her thirty plus years of government service as a Presidential Management Intern at the National Institutes of Health and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Ms. Lively is a Washington D.C. native. She holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Public Policy from the University of Chicago as well as a Master of Science degree in Resourcing National Security from the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington D.C. She is the recipient of a Presidential Rank Award as well as numerous State Department Superior and Meritorious Honor awards. She enjoys her family, sports, music, animals, teaching English as a second language, chocolate, and the outdoors. She is married with two adult sons.