About Us
Board of Directors
Corporate Members
Staff

The Columbia World Affairs Council is a member of the national World Affairs Councils of America network with more than 90 local Councils, located in more than 40 states, including the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, over 350,000  participants, and many affiliated organizations.

​The Columbia World Affairs Council is also a member of Sister Cities International,  a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network that creates and strengthens partnerships between communities in the United States and those in other countries, particularly through the establishment of "sister cities". More than 2,000 cities, states and counties are partnered in over 140 countries around the world.

Dickson Monk:
​Executive Director

Dickson Monk joined the Columbia World Affairs Council in June of 2016, becoming executive director in January 2017. He is dedicated to advancing the trajectory of his hometown towards a thriving and innovative international center in the Southeast and passionate about cultivating a supportive and connected global community. 

After eight years of working in the publishing industry at Bruccoli, Clark, Layman, he joined Columbia’s nonprofit community as communications manager for the Columbia Museum of Art and, later, as director of marketing and communications at Historic Columbia. Dickson currently serves on the boards of South Carolina Sister Cities, Columbia Council for Internationals, SC Partners of the Americas, and US Global Leadership Coalition SC Advisory Committee; and previously, International Association of Business Communicators of South Carolina, The Anchor Institute, American Advertising Federation, and the Media Club of Columbia. He is a member of the Society of International Business Fellows. 

Dickson can be contacted at dmon[email protected], 803.348.4490

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Sewell Gelberd:
International Visitor Program Director

Sewell Gelberd has enjoyed a long and varied career as an entrepreneur, social worker, business consultant, and was Director of Programs for the Columbia Council for Internationals (CCFI) prior to joining Columbia World Affairs Council in 2025. He holds a Masters in Social Work from the University of Illinois Chicago. Sewell was raised and lived in Chicago and moved to Columbia in 2001. In the US Army between 1969 and 1972, he served in Vietnam and the Philippines. Sewell has served numerous boards and has chaired several. 

Sewell joined CCFI in 2021 and was responsible for the rapid growth of their international programming, Under his leadership more than one hundred international visitors per year have been brought to the area primarily from the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadersip Program. He has been nominated for the 2025 Global Ties Network Honors Award. He, his wife Barbara, and dog Zelda live in Columbia. 

Sewell can be contacted at [email protected], 803.678.8489

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Bob Coble:
​Chairman

Bob Coble, former Mayor of the City of Columbia, joined the Columbia World Affairs Council as Chairman in 2010. Aside from his leadership in Columbia World Affairs Council, Bob is a leader within Nexsen Pruet. He serves as chair of the firm’s South Carolina Public Policy and Governmental Affairs Group.  He has also been named Ambassador of the Year by the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Columbia Urban League Board. 

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Fred Monk:  
Chairman Emeritus

​​Fred Monk recently retired as Senior Advisor, International Strategy & Trade at the South Carolina Department of Commerce. He is particularly focused on leveraging South Carolina’s international partnerships for economic, educational and cultural development.
 
Fred helped create and develop the Columbia World Affairs Council in 1992, which has helped the state raise the level of awareness of its international connectivity and establish new international relationships. He was involved in the formation of the sister-state relationships with Queensland, Australia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
 
He was designated chairman emeritus of the Council, received the Council’s Global Vision Award in 1999, and currently serves on the Council’s Board of Directors. Besides helping forge the sister-state relationships, he has been involved in developing Columbia's sister-city relationships with Kaiserslautern, Germany; Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Accra, Ghana; Chelyabinsk, Russia; Yibin, China; and Taichung City, Taiwan.

He currently helps spearhead the Council’s Network Cities Program, which connects Columbia for business and education with partnership regions and their universities in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Romania. 
 
Fred is a graduate of the University of South Carolina College of Journalism and worked at The State (South Carolina’s largest daily newspaper) and The Columbia Record from 1970-1997. He was business editor of The State from 1981 to 1997. He helped develop and served as president of The South Carolina Export Consortium, a non-profit organization that helped small to medium-size companies identify and export to international markets, from 1997 to 2014. He represented South Carolina on the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Export Trade Advisory Council. Besides serving as senior advisor, he is the state’s representative on the Global South Carolina Alliance involving Estonia and Israel and the South Carolina Military Base Task Force. He also serves on the board of the University of South Carolina’s Center for International Business and Research.
 
He served in the U.S. Navy during Vietnam, and later was the Public Affairs Officer with the South Carolina Air National Guard, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He is a past president of the national Society of American Business Editors & Writers, and served on the partnership board of the USC College of Journalism and Mass Communication. He helped create the 3 Rivers Music Festival, which he chaired in Columbia for seven years and is the former president of the Earlewood Community Citizens Organization. He currently chairs the Columbia Parks & Recreation Foundation.

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