Biographical Note

SECRETARY-GENERAL REAPPOINTS SERGEI ORDZHONIKIDZE OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION

DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA

 

Sergei Ordzhonikidze, a Russian national, was reappointed today to the post of Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.  He was originally appointed by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and took up his post on 1 March 2002.

A career diplomat, Mr. Ordzhonikidze joined the Soviet diplomatic service in 1969, and was posted to the Permanent Mission of the Soviet Union to the United Nations in New York, where he worked until 1975.  He then served as Assistant to the Deputy Foreign Minister in Moscow until 1978, when he returned to the Permanent Mission of the Soviet Union to the United Nations in New York, first as Counsellor and then as Senior Counsellor, until 1983.

Returning to Moscow in 1983, he was appointed Deputy Chief of the International Legal Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post he occupied until 1991.  From 1991 to 1996 he served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the Soviet Union and then of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York.  In 1996, he returned to Moscow, where he held the position of Director of the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1999, when he was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Ordzhonikidze graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1969 and, in 1978, completed his post-graduate studies on international law at the Diplomatic Academy of Moscow.  He holds the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and has received several State Awards.

Throughout his diplomatic career, Mr. Ordzhonikidze has served as head of the delegations of the Russian Federation to a great many international conferences and bilateral negotiations.  He has also had many works published on international and legal affairs.

Mr. Ordzhonikidze was born on 14 March 1946 in Moscow.  He is married and has two sons and three grandchildren.  He is fluent in English and Spanish and has knowledge of French.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record