| 1969-1971 | Tutor and Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, Massachusetts |
| 1971-1975 | Assistant Professor of History, Hamilton College, New York |
| 1975-1978 | Deputy Director, Aspen Institute Berlin |
| 1982-1984 | Vice President for Academic Affairs, Longwood College, Virginia |
| 1984-1985 | Senior Vice President, International Management and Development Institute, Washington, D.C. |
| 1985-1992 | Director, West European Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. |
| 1990 | Member of the U.S. delegation to the Copenhagen CSCE Conference |
| 1991 | Guest Professor at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen |
| 1992-1994 | Chief, European Division, Library of Congress |
| 1994-2005 | Democratic Staff Director for European Affairs, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senior Advisor to U.S. Vice President (then-Senator) Joseph R. Biden, Jr. |
| 1993 | , 2000, 2006 Member of the U.S. delegation to the Wehrkunde Security Conference, Munich |
| 2000 | Speech at Assemblée Nationale, Paris |
| 2004 | Member of the U.S. delegation to the inauguration of Boris Tadic as President of Serbia |
| Speech at Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin |
| 2005 | Speech at NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Copenhagen |
| 2005-2006 | Senior Foreign Policy Advisor and Principal, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary U.S. LLP |
| since 2006 | Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. |
| since 2007 | Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates (formerly Kissinger McLarty Associates), Washington, D.C. |
| 2009 | Speech at OSCE Permanent Council, Vienna |
| Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 2009 OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw |
| 2010 | Head of the U.S. Delegation to the OSCE 20th Anniversary Conference in Copenhagen |
| 1974-1988 | Assistant professor at the Anthropologic and Sociologic Institute of the University of Abidjan (Ivory Coast) |
| 1979-1988 | Director of studies and programs (DSP) at the Ministry of Women of the Ivory Coast |
| 1988-1992 | Regional coordinator of a UNDP project on the promotion of the role of women in the sectors of water and sanitation (PROWWESS/Africa) |
| 1997-2000 | Minister of Culture and Tourism of Mali |
| | Author (see list of publications) |
| | Director, Centre Amadou Hampaté BA (west African research and training institution and conference centre; Bamako, Mali) |
| | Founder and owner of partnerships of cultural interest (Djenné, San-Toro, Dunanso - guest-house, restaurant, art gallery, artisan promotion - Bamako, Mali) aimed to develop local know-how |
| | Founder of "Self, neighbours and district", a grass-roots approach to local involvement of the inhabitants of the Missira district (Bamako) in the rehabilitation of infrastructures and of the local market, the promotion of youth and women and access to services |
| | Founder of the African Initiative for Ethics and Aesthetics, aiming to federate the African artists and intellectuals to build and structure an alternate Africa |
| | International consultant for several organisations (UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, BAD, OXFAM/UK) |
| | Founder of "La Fibre africaine", the civil society forum on cotton |
