Jennifer Jo Cobb

Jennifer Jo Cobb, the Executive Director of Driven Diplomacy International, is a professional NASCAR racecar driver, NASCAR team owner, public speaker, entrepreneur, and a corporate spokesperson. She holds several competition records in NASCAR’s Gander Outdoors Truck Series. Ms. Cobb is also a published writer and motivational speaker.

Her professional speaking career was born of a demand that resulted from Ms. Cobb’s successful auto racing endeavors. This captured much media attention and created curiosity among the business community, schools, and businesses. Ms. Cobb began speaking as a volunteer at numerous schools, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs as well as many other service organizations. Soon, business professionals were asking her to share her message at corporate events, annual meetings, reward gatherings and motivational seminars.

“I’m passionate about promoting friendship and inspiration across cultures and I know a lot of great people who can help me in these efforts by presenting the full range of American professionalism, innovation and civic values”

Ms. Cobb got the idea of creating Driven Diplomacy International while being an invited U.S. Subject Matter Expert to the Republic of Georgia as part of the U.S. Department of State’s U.S. Speaker Program and a one-week campaign called “Women Can Do Anything.”  Each year, the U.S. Speaker Program organizes approximately 650 traveling speaker and virtual interactive outreach programs in cooperation with Department of State field posts worldwide. Taking the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be an agent of change, Ms. Cobb acted as a model of empowerment for audiences of Georgian women through talks, workshops, and media interviews.

Her success as a U.S. Subject Matter Expert in Georgia was followed by several invitations to Russia as the U.S. Speaker Program’s guest-speaker. Ms. Cobb’s transformative experience in these very different countries and her rewarding encounters with their people and traditions made her aware of the existing need to bridge cross-cultural gaps and of her unique position and ability to create such opportunities for impactful people-to-people dialogues through her expertise in cultural diplomacy.

“I knew very little about the peoples and cultures within these countries, nonetheless where exactly they were located on a map. However, upon meeting people from Georgia and Russia, it took all of five minutes for me to know that I was exactly where I was meant to be. This program opened my eyes to different languages, different customs, different peoples, and yet, at the same time, made me realize that maybe we’re not so different after all,” says Cobb. “Maybe we can learn from one another, and maybe we can work together and overcome global challenges in a peaceful and accepting way.”

Ms. Cobb realizes that while public diplomacy has been an essential element of American foreign policy for decades, people-to-people diplomacy is now more important than ever. Her personal passion for representing her country to various people around the world and her deep understanding of the need for enhanced mutual understanding and dialogue between individuals, communities, and nations serve as the backbone of Driven Diplomacy International.

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