Peter Yeo

President, Better World Campaign
Senior Vice President, United Nations Foundation

One of nation’s most esteemed experts on U.S.-UN affairs, Peter Yeo leads the Better World Campaign’s strategic engagement with Congress, the Administration, and organizations supporting stronger American leadership on the world stage. Yeo’s advocacy has helped advance critical legislation in the U.S. Congress to ensure the country meet its obligations to the United Nations, UN Peacekeeping Operations, and UN agencies and organizations.

Under Yeo’s leadership as President of the Better World Campaign and Senior Vice President of the United Nations Foundation, advocacy campaigns within UNF, including Shot@Life and United to Beat Malaria, have grown into international movements that support the UN’s global work on preventable and public health.

Yeo brings more than two decades of legislative and policy analysis experience to his work. He has held senior roles on Capitol Hill and in the State Department, including a 10-year position as Deputy Staff Director at the House Foreign Affairs Committee under the chairmanships of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA). During his tenure on the committee, he led negotiations for the landmark PEPFAR legislation, as well the bill’s $50 billion reauthorization in 2008.

Yeo has also shepherded into law several measures dealing with China, Tibet, Burma, and East Timor. While working as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. State Department during the second Clinton Administration, he pushed for repayment of U.S. arrears to the United Nations, and joined the U.S. delegation to the climate negotiations in Kyoto.

Yeo holds a MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a BA in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Board Member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.