Draft:Kelly T. Clements

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Kelly Tallman Clements
Born	Bangor, Maine, United States
Alma mater	Virginia Tech
Spouse	Andrew Clements
Children	2

Kelly Tallman Clements is an American diplomat and humanitarian who has served as Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since 2015. She previously worked for 25 years at the United States Department of State, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

Early life and education

Clements was born and raised in Maine, where her father worked in international affairs, including founding the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine, which helped shape her early interest in global issues.

She studied at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1988, double-majoring in international studies and French, and a Master of Urban Affairs degree in 1990.

After graduate school, she entered the U.S. federal government through the Presidential Management Fellows Program.

Career

U.S. Department of State

Clements joined the U.S. Department of State in 1990 through the Presidential Management Fellows Program and later became a member of the Senior Executive Service.

Her early work focused on refugee and humanitarian crises. In 1991, she served on the State Department's Iraq Task Force on Kurdish Refugees and Displaced Persons, helping coordinate the U.S. response to the displacement of Kurdish refugees into Turkey and Iran following the Gulf War. In 1992, she was detailed to UNHCR in Bangladesh, first as an external relations officer in Dhaka and later as a protection officer in Cox’s Bazar during the Rohingya refugee crisis. She later described her assignment in Cox’s Bazar as a formative experience in her career.

From 1993 to 1996, Clements served at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva on a Foreign Service appointment. She later served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 1997 to 1998.

Clements subsequently held several humanitarian policy and emergency response roles. She worked as a Senior Emergency Officer covering Europe, the Newly Independent States, and the Americas, and later served as Balkans Assistance Coordinator. In 1999, she was deployed to Albania during the Kosovo refugee crisis.

From 2002 to 2010, she served as Deputy Director and then Director of the Office of Policy and Resource Planning in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) at the U.S. State Department. In that role, she oversaw strategic planning, humanitarian policy development, and a funding portfolio exceeding $2 billion annually.

In 2010, Clements was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. She was responsible for humanitarian issues in Asia and the Near East, as well as the Bureau’s Office of Policy and Resource Planning and the Comptroller’s Office. She also served as Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 2014.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

On 11 June 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Clements as Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, succeeding T. Alexander Aleinikoff. She assumed office on 6 July 2015.

As Deputy High Commissioner, Clements oversees external relations, private-sector fundraising, management, innovation and administrative functions at UNHCR, including finance, strategic planning, legal affairs, people management and partnerships.

During her time at UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced and stateless people under the agency’s mandate doubled, alongside the expansion of its budget, operations and workforce. As Deputy High Commissioner, Clements helps lead UNHCR’s institutional reform agenda, resulting in the broadest transformation in the agency’s 75-year history. Her work includes strengthening results-based management, modernizing internal systems and governance, advancing organizational efficiency, and deepening cooperation with governments, civil society, the private sector and other United Nations agencies. Clements has also played a key role in promoting refugee inclusion, access to education and livelihoods, private-sector engagement, and the role of technology and connectivity in humanitarian responses.

United Nations Leadership Roles

In addition to her UNHCR role, Clements served as Vice-Chair of the United Nations Chief Executives Board High-Level Committee on Management from 2017-2026, which pursued management reform, administrative coordination, efficiency and effectiveness across the United Nations system.

From 2019 to 2024, Clements chaired the Chief Executives Board Task Force on Addressing Sexual Harassment within the Organizations of the United Nations System.

Honors and awards

In 2025, Clements was inducted into the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Hall of Honor.

In 2026, the GSMA Chairman’s Award, “Keeping the World Connected in Crisis,” was presented to Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and Clements for their leadership on humanitarian connectivity and the Connectivity for Refugees initiative, jointly launched by ITU and UNHCR at the 2023 Global Refugee Forum.

Personal life

Clements is married to Andrew Clements, a microbiologist who served at the U.S. Agency for International Development for 27 years. They have two children.