Sally A. Painter Chief Operating Officer at Blue Star Strategies
Sally A. Painter is Chief Operating Officer at Blue Star Strategies, LLC. Ms. Painter’s work experience includes time spent in both government and at major corporations in the private sector. Given this diverse background, she provides corporate, institutional and public sector clients with results-oriented external affairs, foreign/security policy and business development strategies. Ms. Painter has an extensive track record working with Central Europe on security and policy issues, including successfully representing many of these countries on their NATO and EU bids as well as a Visa Equity Coalition of seven countries where legislation was passed in the U.S. Congress which allowed their citizens to enter the US visa-free.
Ms. Painter also has a successful track record of leading large-scale public-private projects, such as being a lead advisor on the global NATO Summits including Washington, DC in 1999, Prague in 2002, Istanbul in 2004 and Riga in 2006. In this capacity, she worked directly with the leadership of the host country and with CEOs of global corporations, the U.S. Congress, NATO Headquarters and the Bush and Clinton White Houses to promote and educate transatlantic leaders on the importance of the NATO Alliance.
Ms. Painter is also a member of the Board of the most influential NGO within the NATO space - the US Committee on NATO. As such, she played a significant role in supporting NATO expansion. Instrumental in this successful process was a thorough understanding and ability to educate the foreign policy decision-makers within the transatlantic community. Over the last few years, Ms. Painter has also worked with opposition leaders to promote democracy and transparency in countries in transition, including Albania, Azerbaijan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kazakhstan, Romania, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Throughout 2000, she served as Executive Director of the Business Coalition for U.S.-China Trade, a business group of 100 major corporate leaders that successfully secured passage of Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. For three and a half years, Ms. Painter served as the Director of International at Tenneco Inc, a Fortune 500 company with manufacturing facilities in 42 countries. In this capacity, she was in charge of advancing the corporation's business interests and negotiating new ventures with host governments in more than 20 countries. While at Tenneco, she was instrumental in the creation and early management of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and the French American Business Council, two public-private organizations designed to engage business leaders and government officials to resolve trade disputes.
Prior to joining Tenneco, Ms. Painter was a senior advisor in the Clinton Administration. As such, she helped to manage the outreach and advocacy program for the late Secretary of Commerce, Ronald H. Brown, by providing strategic advice and advocacy to U.S companies bidding and winning overseas contracts.
Ms. Painter is on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Committee on NATO, The Truman National Security Project, the Global Fairness Initiative, Partners for Democratic Change, and is a founding member of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue. She is also a member of the Atlantic Council. Ms. Painter’s accomplishments have been featured in The Wall Street Journal and she has been a guest speaker on Fox News Live. Ms. Painter has received numerous awards for her work, including The Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit from the Republic of Hungary and The Minister of Defense’s Award for Distinction from the Republic of Latvia. She is a certified downhill ski instructor and is married with one son, George, a design consultant.