Goli Ameri (; née Goli Yazdi; born September 26, 1956) is an Iranian American businesswoman and former U.S. diplomat. She is the co-founder of a mobile technology platform called StartItUp, which provides resources to aspiring entrepreneurs. She is the former Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Values and Diplomacy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. She is also the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs. She ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican in 2004, and is a former U.S. Representative to the United Nations. She serves on the board of trustees of the international NGO Freedom House, as well as on the Center for Middle East Public Policy advisory board of the RAND Corporation, a group of public and private sector leaders that provide guidance and support for RAND's Middle East research. Early life and education Ameri was born in Tehran, Imperial State of Iran. She came to the United States as a student in 1974 to attend Stanford University. There, she earned a B.A. in Communications and French Literature and, later, her M.A. in Communications. She also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. She became a U.S. citizen in 1989. Career Ameri was founder and president of eTinium, Inc., a telecommunications consulting firm in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of over fifty market studies and wrote a bi-monthly industry analysis column for Telephony magazine. She has been quoted in such publications as The National Business Journals, The Oregonian, The Seattle Times, The San Jose Mercury News, and Internet Week and has been invited as a speaker and moderator to industry conferences worldwide. Prior to founding eTinium, Ameri was a director at U.S. Leasing, a former division of Ford Credit and Fleet Bank, in San Francisco. She served on the steering committee of the Babson in Oregon M.B.A. program, and was a member of the Oregon Steering Committee on the Campaign for Undergraduate Education for Stanford University. She was a trustee and the Vice Chair for Development for the Catlin Gabel School, overseeing fundraising activities for the scholarship fund and teacher education. Ameri has also taught Junior Achievement classes in Oregon. She is fluent in English, French and Persian, as well as conversant in Spanish. In October 2007, Ameri was named as one of the "100 Most Powerful Women in the Northwest" by The NW