Clayton M. McCleskey is Spokesperson and Acting Director for Press at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Prior to joining USAID, he served as Special Assistant to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel. McCleskey joined the Department of State as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. He has worked in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm and as Country Director for the United Kingdom in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

A former Fulbright Journalism Scholar, McCleskey was an opinions staff writer for The Dallas Morning News. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, Berlin Tagesspiegel, and Kyiv Post. McCleskey graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a double degree in International Affairs and German. He also earned a Masters with Distinction from The London School of Economics.