Music Diplomacy.
Global Partnerships.

Jen McAndrew is a creative leader with 20+ years of experience shaping narratives, strategic initiatives, global partnerships, and exchanges at the intersection of diplomacy, higher education, the arts, and social impact.

As a music diplomacy expert, she has spent her career designing cultural exchanges that bridge music, foreign policy, and conflict resolution, building high-impact initiatives — grounded in network theory and ethnomusicology — that use music to open dialogue between communities. Highlights include: creating the Sound Bridge exchange in the Caucasus (in partnership with Found Sound Nation), curating the Creative Minds series in Ireland, launching the Dosti music exchange, and securing the first-ever Pakistani music showcase at SXSW.

This experience grew out of a seventeen-year career (2009–26) as a U.S. diplomat, where she led strategic communications and public diplomacy initiatives, managed Fulbright scholarships internationally, and served at U.S. Embassies in Armenia, Ireland, Pakistan, and Israel, as well as the Washington Foreign Press Center. She also taught cultural diplomacy tradecraft at the Foreign Service Institute. Her scholarly writing on music diplomacy and network effects has been published by USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy.

Jen currently serves as Senior Director of Events at Berklee College of Music, where she applies this diplomatic expertise to advance global connections through the arts. She also serves on the board of the Lois Roth Foundation and is the founder of Bardo House LLC, providing consulting on international music exchanges and cultural programming.

She holds an MA in Cultural Policy & Arts Management from University College Dublin, an MA in Mass Communication from Texas State University, and a BA in Irish Studies from Southwestern University. She began her career in public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.