Secretary-General Announces Intention to Appoint Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti of Brazil Chef de Cabinet

The following senior staff appointment was announced on 15 December 2016 by then-Secretary-General-designate António Guterres:

I am pleased to announce that I will be appointing Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti of Brazil as my Chef de Cabinet.

Ms. Viotti is presently the Under-Secretary for Asia and the Pacific at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she has special responsibility for work on BRICS.  A career diplomat since 1976, she served most recently as Ambassador to Germany, from 2013 to 2016, and as Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, from 2007 to 2011.

Prior to those roles, Ms. Viotti was posted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brasília, where she served as Adviser to the Minister (1990-1993), Head of the South America Division I (1996-99), Director-General for Human Rights and Social Issues (2004-06) and Director-General for International Organizations (2006-07), among other positions.

Earlier in her career, she was appointed to Brazil’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, from 1985 to 1988 and again from 1999 to 2004, and to the country’s Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, from 1993 to 1995.

Ms. Viotti holds a bachelor’s degree in economics (1979) from the University of Brasilia, where she also concluded a post-graduate course in 1981.  She also attended the Rio Branco Institute, Brazil’s diplomatic academy.

Born in 1954, she is married and has one son.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/3894 of 25 July 2007.