Early Life and Education
Rivkin earned a B.A. from Yale University in 1984 where he graduated with distinction in political science and international relations. At Yale he also sang with the famed Whiffenpoofs, America's oldest collegiate a cappella singing group. He then earned an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1988.
He speaks fluent French and spent years as a youth studying, traveling and working in France, including studying in Rennes with School Year Abroad and working as an intern at Renault. Business interests regularly brought him to Paris or Cannes prior to his appointment as ambassador.
Rivkin's parents were of Russian, Polish and Austrian Jewish roots, and he was raised by a Protestant stepfather. He is one of four children of William R. Rivkin, the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg under President John F. Kennedy and United States Ambassador to Senegal and Gambia under President Lyndon B. Johnson; and Enid Hammerman, who was the daughter of the owner of one of the largest children's clothing manufacturers at the time. His family has presented the "Rivkin Award" at the United States Department of State since 1968 as a way to honor intellectual courage and constructive dissent in the American Foreign Service. The award was created in part with the help of Charles Rivkin's godfather, Hubert H. Humphrey, after the elder Rivkin's death at 47, in 1967.
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