The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed the appointment of Stacey Woolf Feinberg as the new US ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, completing a process that began in the spring. This formal confirmation follows a vote in plenary, after the block passage of several diplomatic appointments in accordance with Resolution S. Res. 412.
Ms Feinberg, originally from California, succeeds Thomas Barrett, who has been in Luxembourg since 2022. The new ambassador brings an atypical profile for a diplomatic post: an entrepreneur, investor and communicator, she is the founder and director of 33 Capital LLC, a private equity company dedicated to financing and supporting women entrepreneurs. She regularly serves as a juror at venture capital competitions and leads the Women Founders Network's Junior VC programme.
Born into a background combining sport, law and the media, Stacey Feinberg began her career at the firm founded by her father, Bob Woolf Associates, a pioneer in the representation of athletes and entertainment personalities. There she negotiated contracts for the likes of Larry Bird, Larry King, Joe Montana and the New Kids on the Block, before setting up the agency's literary division and helping to create the Champions chain of sports bars in partnership with Marriott. A graduate of Northwestern University, she trained at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.
Her hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last June drew attention for her trenchant statements on China. Ms Feinberg described Beijing's strategy as "harmful" to Western security and interests, and called on Luxembourg to be more vigilant in the fields of technology, artificial intelligence and cyber security. These comments had prompted an irritated reaction from the Chinese embassy in Luxembourg, which had deemed them "defamatory" and "ideologically biased".
For its part, the Luxembourg government said it was "delighted" to welcome the future US ambassador, while noting the sensitivity of Sino-Luxembourg issues, particularly in the space, financial and technology sectors.
Ms Feinberg's confirmation comes against a diplomatic backdrop marked by closer transatlantic ties and rising tensions over foreign investment policies in Europe. With her profile as a seasoned investor and communicator, the new ambassador could play a key role in economic and technological cooperation between Washington and Luxembourg, while embodying an increasingly direct American diplomacy on issues of security and values.
