Alejandro Jara was a Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He served in this position from 2005 to 2013. His career began in 1976 when he joined the Foreign Service of Chile to primarily focus on international economic relations. From 1979 to 1984, he served in the Delegation of Chile to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and was seconded to the Economic System for Latin America (SELA) in Caracas as Coordinator for Trade Policy Affairs. He was appointed Director for Bilateral Economic Affairs in 1993 and Director for Multilateral Economic Affairs in 1994. From 1996 to 1997, he was also Chile's senior official to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Deputy Chief Negotiator for the Chile-Canada Free Trade Agreement and Chile-Mexico Free Trade Agreement. In 1999, he was designated Director General for International Economic Relations. He was appointed in 2000 as Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Chile to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. From 2000 to 2005 he held various diplomatic and ministerial positions, including Chairperson of the Committee on Trade and Environment of the WTO in 2001 and Chairman of the Special Session of the Council for Trade in Services in 2002. He has written a variety of papers on international trade. Currently he works as Of Counsel of the Chilean Law Firm Vásquez Urra Abogados, Santiago, Chile.
Ransford Smith, CD, is a senior public servant from Jamaica. He was the Deputy Secretary-General for Economic Affairs and Development of the Commonwealth of Nations from 2006 to 2013.
Jan-Mikael Lindström is a retired Swedish diplomat. Lindström's career in international diplomacy spans several decades, beginning with his role as a foreign service officer in Sweden's Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1970. He gained early experience at embassies in Rabat and Paris, before specializing in European trade and nuclear non-proliferation issues at the Ministry. From 1983 to 1987, he was stationed at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C., and later became deeply involved in international trade negotiations, including the Uruguay Round and China's accession to GATT, working in Geneva from 1990 to 1994. Lindström then served as Sweden's ambassador to Jakarta, Tokyo, and Beijing, where he furthered Sweden's diplomatic relationships in Asia and addressed complex trade and investment issues. His diplomatic work included membership in the WTO Dispute Settlement Panel and culminated with a key role as Chief Co-ordinator for Trade and Investment Promotion.
Rufus Hawkins Yerxa is a retired American lawyer and former U.S. government and international official. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations, and served for 11 years as Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). From 2016 to 2021 he was President of the National Foreign Trade Council.
Zoran Jolevski is a Macedonian diplomat and the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Macedonia. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Defense, he served as Macedonia's Ambassador to the United States of America. In November 2008, he was appointed chief negotiator to the Macedonia naming dispute, and in 2011 he was appointed Ambassador to the United Mexican States and as Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States. He served as Secretary General of the late Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski from 2000–2004. He holds a Ph.D. in International Economy from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. He is married to Suzana Jolevska, and together they have two sons, Pero (1988) and Filip (1992).
Alphonse Berns is a senior Luxembourg diplomat in the rank of Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. He has served as his country's Ambassador in Washington, DC, London, Brussels, to NATO as well as to the UN and WTO in Geneva. Currently he holds the position of Director General for Fiscal Policy in the Ministry of Finance in Luxembourg.
Crispin Conroy is an Australian diplomat.
This article deals with the diplomatic affairs, foreign policy and international relations of Barbados.
Swiss–Turkish relations are foreign relations between Switzerland and Turkey. Switzerland has an embassy in Ankara and a consulate-general in Istanbul. Turkey has an embassy in Bern and consulates-general in Zürich and Geneva. Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe, the OECD, the OSCE and the WTO.
Vangelis (Evangelos) Vitalis is a New Zealand diplomat and trade negotiator currently working as the Deputy Secretary for the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo is a Brazilian career diplomat who served as Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 2013 until 2020. Since 2020, he has been Executive Vice President and Director of Corporate Affairs at PepsiCo.
The ambassador and permanent representative of Australia to the World Trade Organization is an officer of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the head of the Permanent Mission of the Commonwealth of Australia to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland. The position has the rank and status of an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary and continues Australia's representation to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as a charter member joining the WTO to replace the GATT on 1 January 1995. The Permanent Mission to the WTO is based with the Australian Permanent Mission and Consulate-General in Geneva. Prior to 1973, the role of Australia's representative on the GATT was filled by the Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations Office in Geneva.
Richard L. Bernal, OJ was a Jamaican economist and diplomat. Bernal served as the Jamaican Ambassador to the United States from 1991 to 2001, simultaneously holding the post of Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the Organization of American States. As of March 2016, Bernal held the post of Pro Vice-Chancellor for Global Affairs at the University of the West Indies (UWI). Bernal was a Member of the Order of Jamaica. In 2018, he was made a Professor of Practice (PoP) in international economic policy at The UWI. Bernal was a Member of the Leadership Council of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He was also a member of the Board of Directors at Laspau, Harvard University.
Kamina Johnson Smith is a Jamaican of Afro-European heritage, attorney-at-law and Senator. Johnson Smith is Jamaica's first female Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. Since 2016, Johnson Smith has served concurrently as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Leader of Government Business in the Senate.
Yoo Myung-hee is a South Korean politician who served as the Minister for Trade of South Korea from 2019 to 2021. She was the first woman to hold the position. Over the past 25 years, she worked in various government agencies since she passed the Korean state civil servant exam in 1991. She is also noted as being the final two candidates in the 2020 World Trade Organization leadership race.
Julie-Ann Guivarra is an Australian diplomat who was the first Indigenous person to serve as a senior executive in the Australian Foreign Ministry and the first Indigenous woman to represent Australia as an ambassador, serving as Ambassador to Spain from 2018 to 2020 with non-resident accreditation to Andorra and Equatorial Guinea. In May 2020, she was appointed as Australia's Ambassador for Gender Equality.
Kerrie Symmonds is a Barbadian lawyer, politician and the cabinet minister in the government of Mia Mottley. He has served as the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade since 2022, and was previously minister of energy and business development.
Chad Blackman born in October 1982, is a Barbadian politician and former diplomat. He was appointed to the Senate of Barbados by the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley, as well as Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment on January 8, 2024. He served as the Senior Advisor to the Director-General of the International Labour Organization, H.E Gilbert Houngbo until January 7, 2024 and was Barbados' Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Geneva, Vienna, and Rome, and former Ambassador to Switzerland, Austria, Serbia and Hungary. As Ambassador, he was President of the G77 and China Geneva Chapter; Co-ordinator of the Group of Small Island Developing States; Co-ordinator of the Group of Latin-America and Caribbean Countries GRULAC, and was a Global Board Member of the United Nations International Gender Champions. Blackman is also an international trade law specialist. Within the Cabinet of the ILO, he has responsibility for Latin-America & The Caribbean, the African Region, the United Nations, and external relations and corporate services. He has served as the youth development consultant with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. He served as the chair for the Trade and Development, and Trade and Environment Committees in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Blackman is also the first Ambassador of Barbados to Serbia. He also Chaired the SIDS Group in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Guillaume Kavaruganda is a Rwandan career diplomat who has spent the majority of his career serving in a number of diplomatic capacities.
Vepa Hajiyev is a Turkmenistan politician who is currently serving as Turkmenistan's permanent representative to the United Nations agencies in Geneva and ambassador to Switzerland. From 2006 to 2023 he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
