He served from 1997 to 2001. In 2009, President Obama appointed Phillips to be the chairman of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, where he served for four years. He was an appointed member (1988) to serve on the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference. President Obama appointed him as US Ambassador to Italy and San Marino in 2013. Phillips invested in a group of houses (a "borgo," or village) in Tuscany in 2001 that were more than 800 years old and were in a ruined state. He spent eight years restoring and improving the buildings and grounds, following strict historic preservation rules. The Borgo Finocchieto, which has a total of 22 bedrooms (Borgo Finocchieto in Bibbiano, Buonconvento), is designed to host groups, small conferences and educational programs, loosely based on the Aspen Institute model. Phillips was a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Academy in Rome from 2009 to 2013. He rejoined the board in March 2017 after he stepped down as ambassador. Before he became ambassador to Italy, he made more than 50 trips to Italy in the previous decade and has made approximately 100 separate trips to Italy in his lifetime. Phillips is married to Linda Douglass, a veteran journalist and communications strategist. They have a daughter.