Michael C. Keays assumed his position as Chargé d’affaires, a.i. at the U.S. Embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro upon arrival on February 27, 2026. Mr. Keays is a Senior Foreign Service Officer with over 33 years in the U.S. Department of State. He previously worked as a Senior Advisor on the Department’s Policy Planning Staff and in the Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. From September 2022 to July 2024, Mr. Keays was a Senior Diplomatic Fellow on detail to the Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center, a non-partisan think tank, working on Russia-Ukraine issues. Prior to this, he served for three years as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo, Suriname; and for three years as Principal Officer and Consul General in charge of the U.S. Consulate General in Vladivostok, Russia, covering the world’s largest consular district. Mr. Keays’ previous diplomatic postings overseas include the U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Moscow and Kingston. In Afghanistan, he was the State Department representative on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ghazni Province. At the State Department, he previously served as an advisor to two U.S. Special Negotiators for Conflicts in the Former Soviet Union, and as the Counterinsurgency & Political-Military Team Leader on the Afghanistan Desk. He joined the State Department’s Foreign Service in 1992, and received language training in Russian, Polish and Pashto.

In June 2014, Mr. Keays completed a Masters in National Security Strategy at the National War College and began working as Senior Ukraine Policy Advisor in the State Department’s Office of Eastern European Affairs. Prior to his studies, he served as an Associate Coordinator at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute’s Political Training Division, where he trained and mentored over 750 Foreign Service Officers heading overseas.

Mr. Keays is a cum laude graduate of the University of California at San Diego with Department Honors in Political Science. He completed the U.S. Air Force’s four-year Reserve Officer Training Corps program and served as a reservist for three years in the U.S. Coast Guard. Mr. Keays is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution – a national patriotic organization – by virtue of his ancestors’ service during the Revolutionary War. He and his wife, Andrea – formerly a Jamaican diplomat – have two grown children.