Rolf Olson began service as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Accra, Ghana in September 2023.  He most recently served as Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria from 2021-23. That was his second time working in the U.S. Mission to Nigeria, having previously been the Political/Economic Section Chief at U.S. Consulate Lagos from 2011-14.

A career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State since 2001, Mr. Olson served as Foreign Policy Advisor (POLAD) for the U.S. Africa Command’s Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, based at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti from 2020-21. In that position he advised the Commanding General and his staff on foreign policy matters related to the Command’s mission and activities in East Africa and the rest of the African continent. Mr. Olson also served as Director for African Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), and as an Africa adviser in the office of U.S. Senator Christopher Coons. Other assignments included service at U.S. embassies in Bolivia (twice), Venezuela, Guyana, and Pakistan, and in Washington for the Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM).

A graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, Mr. Olson is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Laura Garcia Olson have two children.