Ambassador (ret) Stuart Jones was appointed to the original International Advisory Board to oversee the Baptism Site Development Zone by Royal Decree in 2020. In 2023, he transferred to the Bethany Beyond the Jordan US Foundation to support fundraising for the project and now serves as Chairman of the Foundation Board of Trustees.
Ambassador Jones currently serves at the 18th president of the Middle East Institute (MEI), which he joined in January 2025. Stu came to MEI from the Bechtel Corporation, a global engineering, construction and project management firm, where he was a senior vice president and President for Regions and Corporate Affairs. He retired from Bechtel in 2024.
Prior to Bechtel, Stu served for three decades as a US Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State. His tours included US Ambassador to Iraq (2014-17), during the height of the ISIS crisis, and US Ambassador to Jordan (2011-14). Other foreign tours included Turkey, Egypt, El Salvador, and Colombia. He retired as the senior bureau officer (SBO) for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in 2017.
Hailing from Philadelphia, Stu is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Duke University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. He resides with his wife, also a former Foreign Service Officer, in northern Virginia.