Jimmy Kolker helped establish the U.S. State Department Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy in 2023 and is very active with non-profit organizations working on Africa, global health and health diplomacy.  

He retired as the Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  January, 2017. In that role, Ambassador Kolker was the Department’s chief health diplomat, representing the United States at World Health Organization meetings and as alternate Board Member of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Amb. Kolker had a 30-year diplomatic career with the U.S. Department of State where he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Uganda (2002-2005) and to Burkina Faso (1999-2002). From 2005-2007, he was Deputy Global AIDS Coordinator, leading implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Earlier in his career, Amb. Kolker was Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. embassies in Denmark and Botswana and won awards for political reporting at earlier posts in the UK, Sweden, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

From 2007-2011, prior to joining HHS, Amb. Kolker was Chief of the HIV and AIDS Section at UNICEF’s New York headquarters. In this role, he led UNICEF's work on HIV and AIDS, focusing on mother-to-child-transmission of HIV, pediatric treatment, prevention among adolescents and young people, and protection for children and families affected by AIDS.

Amb. Kolker serves on the boards of the Firelight Foundation, Building Tomorrow, American Diplomacy Publications, MANA Nutrition and the G4Alliance. He is on advisory councils for Global HOPE, Last Mile Health and the Augusta Victoria Hospital. He has been a visiting scholar at American Association for the Advancement of Science, an adjunct at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, and a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Publications include the chapter on Health and Science Diplomacy for the textbook Diplomatic Tradecraft, published in 2024 by Cambridge University Press.

Amb. Kolker holds two honorary doctorate degrees, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School  and a B.A. magna cum laude from Carleton College in Minnesota. He was a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellow (1970-1971). He speaks French, Swedish, and Portuguese.