Following her graduate studies, Phee became a deputy press secretary to Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Phee joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991. Her assignments in the Foreign Service have included ones in
Rome, Italy;
Kuwait City, Kuwait;
Cairo,
Egypt;
Amman,
Jordan; and
Washington, DC. From 2003 to 2004, Phee served as the senior civilian representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority to Maysan Province, Iraq In 2005, Phee moved to New York to serve as counselor for political affairs and deputy Security Council coordinator at the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations, where on occasion sat in for then-Ambassador
John R. Bolton. Ambassador
Ryan Crocker and General
David Petraeus invited Phee to join the Joint Strategic Assessment Team established in 2007 to revise the U.S. strategy in
Iraq. In 2008, Phee took an assignment in
Italy as the regional affairs coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. From 2009 to 2011, Phee returned to Washington to serve as director for Iraq at the
National Security Council. In that role she was responsible for coordinating the U.S. transition from military to civilian operations, culminating in the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops in December 2011. From 2011 to 2014, Phee served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia. When President Obama nominated her to become ambassador to South Sudan, she was already serving as chief of staff at the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.
Ambassador to South Sudan On September 17, 2014, Phee was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to South Sudan by President
Barack Obama. She was
confirmed by the Senate on June 24, 2015, and sworn in on July 15, 2015, to replace
Susan D. Page, who had resigned. She served from 2015 until 2017. When the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not immediately confirm Phee's nomination, several NGOs wrote to the committee urging it to quickly confirm the nomination, given the difficult situation in South Sudan. The organizations included
Better World Campaign,
The Enough Project, Humanity United,
Jewish World Watch,
International Rescue Committee,
Mercy Corps,
Oxfam America,
Relief International,
Save the Children,
United to End Genocide, and
Water for South Sudan. The NGOs protested that the U.S. had been without a confirmed ambassador to South Sudan since August 2014. They noted that the absence of an ambassador in a country involved in a "deadly, costly and geopolitically destabilizing civil war" had limited the U.S. ability to successfully promote peaceful resolution. In accepting the role of ambassador in 2015, Phee was expected to oversee the relief effort of $456 million donated by the U.S. for over a million people displaced by the war, as well as revive the peace talks in Addis Ababa. Ambassador Phee was then named as principal deputy assistant secretary of the
Bureau of International Organization Affairs and served as acting assistant secretary until the appointment of
Kevin Moley. Her assignment was curtailed by Moley, after which the U.S. Department of State Office of the Inspector General opened an investigation into allegations that the assistant secretary and other political appointees in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs used politicized and improper practices against career employees. Ambassador Phee then served as the deputy special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation.
Biden administration State Department Nomination On April 15, 2021, President
Joe Biden nominated Phee to be the next assistant secretary of state for African affairs. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on her nomination on July 20, 2021. The committee favorably reported her nomination to the Senate floor on August 4, 2021. On September 28, 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed Phee as assistant secretary by a vote of 67–31. She was sworn in on September 30.
Tenure On January 14, 2022, Phee announced that she would seek to help end the ongoing
conflicts in Ethiopia with a visit to
Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, and
Ethiopia.
African Development Foundation Nomination Along with being nominated for a role in the State Department, Phee was nominated by President Biden to be a member of the board of directors of the
African Development Foundation. Hearings were held on this nomination by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 20, 2021. The committee favorably reported the nomination to the Senate floor on August 4, 2021. One of these nominations was withdrawn by President Biden on February 10, 2022, as the term for it had expired. Phee's nomination for a term ending in 2026 was resubmitted in January 2023 but expired a year later and was not resubmitted. ==Personal==