In the late 1980s, Kansteiner was appointed Director of Economic Studies at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.[2] In May 1989, Kansteiner joined the State Department's policy planning staff as Africa director. He served in this position until June 1991, when he moved to the National Security Council as director for African affairs. In April 1992, he was appointed as the National Security Council Deputy Press Secretary.[1]
As a founding principal of The Scowcroft Group,[3] Kansteiner has advised corporations on mergers, acquisitions and privatizations throughout Africa in the telecommunications, forestry, mining, financial services, health care, and aviation industries. Kansteiner advised the buy side on the $1.3 billion privatization of Telkom South Africa, to date the largest privatization in Africa. He also was executive vice president of W. H. Kansteiner, Inc. in Chicago, an agricultural commodity trading and manufacturing company specializing in tropical commodities in the developing world.[4][5]
In June 2001 he was appointed as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. In 2003, he left the post, citing family reasons.[6][7] He was appointed in April 2004 as independent non-executive director to the board of Spescom Limited.[4]
Kansteiner is married; has two children, Beverly and Chalker; and resides in Middleburg, Virginia. His wife, Frances Kansteiner, is from Alabama. Her father, William Houston Blount, ran Vulcan Materials for many years, and his brother, Winton M. "Red" Blount, was Postmaster General in Richard Nixon's cabinet.[11] Red and his brother, Houston, founded Blount Brothers Construction, a large construction and manufacturing firm formerly headquartered in Montgomery. It was later renamed Blount International and moved to Portland, Oregon.
Frances Kansteiner was an officer, director, and advisor to the WILD Foundation.[12] She also on the board of Stratford Hall.
