Aaron D. Snipe is a career member of the U.S. Department of State Senior Foreign Service and currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Tokyo. He previously served in Tokyo as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs from 2024 to 2025 and in London as Embassy Spokesperson from 2020 to 2023. Aaron’s prior work in Japan includes service as the Embassy’s Political-Military Counselor from 2015 to 2019.

Aaron’s other overseas assignments include service as Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., in Dublin, Ireland, in August 2022, and multiple tours in Iraq where he served as the Public Diplomacy Officer for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Muthanna Province from 2008 to 2009, and as the Deputy Spokesperson in Baghdad from 2010 to 2011. He also served briefly as Cultural Affairs Officer in Baghdad from July 2019 to September 2019. In addition to his overseas work in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Aaron served as a Consular/Political-Economic Officer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 2003 to 2005.

Aaron’s service in Washington includes tours in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs, Executive Secretariat Operations Center, and in the Bureau of Near East Affairs as both a Deputy Office Director and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Before joining the State Department, Aaron worked in the financial services industry as an analyst at UBS PaineWebber, and then as an Assistant Compliance Director at MetLife Securities in New York City. After graduating from Emerson College and Suffolk University Law School, he studied at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and then spent two years as a JET Programme instructor in the town of Kajiki in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, teaching English to primary and secondary school students.

Aaron’s commitment to public service began 1994 when he served as a National Park Service Park Ranger in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, conducting historical walking tours of the city of Boston. He is married with two children.