Mr. Tarnoff is the President of the International Advisory Corporation in San Francisco, California, a company that provides worldwide advisory services to U.S. and foreign businesses. Prior to 1997, Mr. Tarnoff served as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, the third ranking State Department official, with responsibilities in supervising State Department bureaus on Africa, Asia, Europe, Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, as well as International Organizations. He also represented the U.S. in international meetings, on special missions, and in presenting the Administration's position to Congress, the public and the press. He started his career as a foreign service officer, with assignments from 1961 to 1982 in Lagos, Saigon, Bonn, Paris, Lyon and Luxemburg. He served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in Vietnam, Germany, France, and Washington, DC. He was Executive Secretary of the Department of State and Special Assistant to Secretaries Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie.
Mr. Tarnoff was President of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York between 1986 and 1993 and prior to that he was the Executive Director of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, which is the largest U.S. foreign affairs organization for the general public.
Mr. Tarnoff studied at the Colgate University (B.A.), the University of Chicago, the University of Paris, and Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris.