SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS FEDERICO RIESCO AS ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY AFFAIRS AND CONFERENCE SERVICES
Press Release
SG/A/664
BIO/3133
SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS FEDERICO RIESCO AS ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY AFFAIRS AND CONFERENCE SERVICES
19980122 Biographical Note Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Federico Riesco as Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services, effective 1 January.Mr. Riesco joined the United Nations in 1966 as a translator after being successful in the requisite international competitive examination. He rose through the ranks of the Spanish Translation Service, serving as translator, précis-writer, reviser, programming officer, training officer and officer-in-charge.
In 1980, he was designated Chief of the Documents Control Section of the then Department of Conference Services, with responsibility for managing the scheduling and processing of all parliamentary documents, meeting records and publications at Headquarters. In 1984, he became Director of the Editorial and Official Records Division in the same Department, with wider responsibility in all matters concerning official documentation.
In 1988, he transferred to the Office of Human Resources Management as Director, first of the Staff Administration and Training Division, and subsequently of the Recruitment and Placement Division. In this capacity, he served often as officer-in-charge of that Office.
He returned in 1992 to Conference Services, by then an Office, as Director of the Translation and Editorial Division, and in 1994 became Director of Conference Services and Deputy to the Assistant Secretary-General of the newly established Office of Conference and Support Services.
With the consolidation of conference services and technical secretariat support for intergovernmental bodies in the Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services in mid-1997, he assumed the functions of Deputy to its Under-Secretary-General for which the General Assembly established an Assistant Secretary-General post in the programme budget for 1998-1999.
A graduate of the School of Journalism of the University of Chile, Mr. Riesco later attended Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. For 10 years, from 1956 to 1966, he worked as a reporter, editor, translator and interpreter for South American news agencies and publications and for the United States Information Service.
Born in Santiago, Chile, on 26 August 1936, Mr. Riesco is married and has one son.
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