Spogli is a co-founder of Freeman Spogli & Co., a private equity investment firm.[5] Before that he was a managing director in the Investment Banking Division of Dean Witter Reynolds.[6] In 2002, President Bush appointed Spogli to a three-year term with the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board.[7] Spogli quit working at Freeman Spogli & Co. on July 31, 2005, and was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to Italy on August 10, 2005, and to San Marino in September 2006.[8] He left post on February 6, 2009. He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2016.