Kent Lucken

Carrie Chapman Catt Public Engagement Award
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Established in 2006 to honor alumni of the college who have demonstrated outstanding achievement for their work with public entities at the local, state, national, or international levels

Kent Lucken

BA Political Science ’86
Newton, Mass.

Kent Lucken is the managing director of Citi Private Bank in Boston, Mass., where he provides global wealth management services to international entrepreneurs, private equity firms, and several of the world's largest privately held companies.

Before launching his career in finance, Lucken was a program director for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of European Affairs, and for eight years he served as a diplomat at the U.S. Embassies in Slovenia, Croatia, Georgia, Russia, and Italy. In 1991, he witnessed the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, including Boris Yeltsin’s defiant speech atop a tank. The U.S. State Department awarded him a Distinguished Service Award for his reporting. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he served as the first U.S. diplomat in the newly independent Republic of Georgia. He also participated in Dayton Peace talks while assigned to the former Yugoslavia from 1993-1998.

Lucken was a prominent advisor to Mitt Romney during his 2008 presidential campaign. He remains engaged in international affairs through his service on the boards of the U.S.-Asia Institute and the Institute for Global Leadership, as well as his service for the U.S. State Department as an international election observer.

Lucken is an ISU Alumni Association life member, a member of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council, and a member of the ISU Order of the Knoll. His other ISU awards include the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award in 2003, the Wallace E. Barron All-University Senior Award in 1986, and Cardinal Key Honor Society in 1986.