Anania, Jay Nicholas, 1959-

Jay Nicholas Anania (1959- ) is a former career foreign service officer who served as Ambassador to Suriname. Appointed in July 2012, Anania served from November 2012 until October 2015.

Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, Anania earned a B.A. in History at Kenyon College in 1981 and an M.B.A. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He joined the Foreign Service in 1985, serving early foreign postings at the consulate general in Tijuana, Mexico; at the Interests Section in Havana, Cuba; and at the embassies in Amman, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong, China, where he served as management officer from 1999 to 2002.

In Washington at the State Department, Anania served as director of the Office of Management Policy from 2002 to 2005 and acting chief information officer in the Bureau of Information Resource Management from 2005 to January 2006. In 2003, he established and led the department’s Office of Rightsizing the U.S. Government Overseas Presence. From 2006 to 2009, Anania was minister-counselor for Management Affairs at the embassy in Berlin, Germany, where he also served for seven months as acting deputy chief of mission. From 2009 to 2011, he served as executive director of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. From 2011 to 2012, he served as management counselor at the embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

Following his ambassadorship, Anania served as COO of the Organization of American States (OAS). In 2017, he joined government technology vendor Buchanan & Edwards as director of foreign affairs.

Anania and his wife, Lourdes, have a college-age son named Nicholas.