Leadership, Character, and Diplomacy
Former ambassador Shefali Razdan Duggal visited Wake Forest for a conversation about her life in politics and public service.
When Shefali Razdan Duggal was the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, she regularly worked 90 hours a week. She felt like she had to. “A typical day? There is none,” she told Wake Forest students at a recent talk organized by the Program for Leadership and Character. “You’d be meeting with ministers. You would be conveying the policy interests of the United States at all times.” Razdan Duggal managed nearly 450 people at the U.S. embassy. She also made a point to get to know the Dutch people. “I thought that showed respect as a U.S. ambassador,” she said. “You can be a hammer. And I didn’t want to do that.”
Razdan Duggal visited Wake Forest University last month for a conversation entitled “Leadership, Character, and Diplomacy,” moderated by our senior executive director, Michael Lamb. In addition to her position as ambassador, Razdan Duggal has also served on the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council of American Ambassadors. She is also a member of our Program’s Leadership and Character Council. Her son Tarak, a 2024 Wake Forest graduate, served as one of our Program’s Leadership and Character Ambassadors.
The hour-long conversation was co-sponsored by Wake Forest’s Women’s Center and the Department of Politics & International Affairs. Razdan Duggal, the first woman of color to hold her position, attributed her long career in public service and politics to something she saw on television at age nine: Presidential candidates Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan having a debate. “I was watching these two men, and I was kind of amazed that they both seemed like these very pleasant humans,” she said. So, she started reading more about them and discovered that before they were politicians, Carter was a peanut farmer, and Reagan was an actor from a broken home. Neither came from money or privilege, which was especially striking to a young immigrant being raised by a single mom. “I thought about how they could rise up,” she said. “I thought: This country allows something like that? That was the miracle to me. And that’s when I fell in deep love with the United States.”
Razdan Duggal also took questions from students, including one who asked if she knew she wanted to be an ambassador. “You should never want to be something. You should want to do something,” Razdan Duggal said. “If what you want to do happens to be in the world of diplomacy and serving as an ambassador, then that’s incredible. But I say that because there are people that reach out and say, ‘I want to be someone.’ And it’s like: Why? Tell me the reason. If you’re wanting to do something just for the sake of an interesting title, power, and privilege, you’re not actually going to be doing it for the right reason.”
You can watch the full conversation below: