Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Thomas Gass of Switzerland Assistant Secretary-General

for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Thomas Gass of Switzerland as Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.  He will replace Thomas Stelzer, to whom the Secretary-General and the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs are grateful for his commitment and dedicated service to the Organization.

Mr. Gass brings with him wide-ranging experience in bilateral and multilateral development cooperation.  Since August 2009, he has served as Head of the Mission of Switzerland to Nepal (Ambassador and Country Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation).

Before his posting to Nepal, Mr. Gass was Head of the Economic and Development Section at the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York.  He also served as Policy and Programme Officer for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, as Deputy Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Guyana, and as Regional Director for Europe with the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Rome.

Born in 1963, Mr. Gass holds a PhD in natural sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an MSc and engineering diploma in agricultural sciences from the same Institute.

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