Brussels Forum Session: Opening Dinner: A Shared Cause, A Meal Shared—Voices from the Region
John Hewko is the general secretary and chief executive officer of Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation.
Hewko previously served as vice president for operations and compact development for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US government agency established in 2004 to deliver foreign assistance to the world’s poorest countries. At MCC, he completed the negotiation of assistance agreements totaling $6.3 billion to 18 countries for infrastructure, agriculture, water and sanitation, health, and education projects.
Prior to joining MCC, Hewko was an international partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie, specializing in international corporate transactions in emerging markets. He helped establish the firm’s Moscow office and was the managing partner of its offices in Kyiv and Prague.
While working in Ukraine in the early 1990s, Hewko assisted the working group that prepared the initial draft of the new Ukrainian post-Soviet constitution and was a charter member of the first Rotary club in Kyiv.
Hewko has been a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has published papers and articles in leading US and international publications and has spoken extensively on political and business issues dealing with the former Soviet Union, Central Europe, Africa, and Latin America. He is also a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.
Hewko holds a law degree from Harvard University, a master’s in modern history from Oxford University (where he studied as a Marshall Scholar), and a bachelor’s in government and Soviet studies from Hamilton College in New York.