Hovhannissian put his Arab studies to use in 2001 as a team leader and emergency planner for the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process. He joined Armenia’s Foreign Service in 2009 as his country’s Consul General in Los Angeles. There, he had to help clean up a mess made by one of his predecessors who was involved in an immigration documents sale scheme. In 2014, he was named Ambassador to Mexico, along with responsibilities for Panama, Cuba, Costa Rica and Guatemala.   read more

In 2007, Groser was accused by his by-now ex-wife of smoking marijuana while on the job as Ambassador in Jakarta. Groser denied the accusation and the controversy died down. Groser was being touted in 2013 to be the next Director General of the WTO. He was not given the post, but it was later found in documents leaked by Edward Snowden that New Zealand’s intelligence service had used U.S. National Security Agency facilities to spy on the other candidates for the position on behalf of Groser.   read more

He led the Adriatic department, but thereafter was sent to Brussels as a counselor in the U.K.’s permanent mission to the EU. In 2004, Darroch was made EU adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair and head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat. He capped his association with EU in 2007, when he was named the U.K.’s permanent representative to that organization. He returned to London in 2012 as National Security Adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, where he served until 2015.   read more

Lousteau accomplished a great deal at a young age. By 2003, he was working in government, first as an adviser to the governor of Argentina’s central bank and beginning in 2005 as the Minister of Production in the province of Buenos Aires. In December 2007, Lousteau became the first finance minister in the administration of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. At age 37, he was the youngest person to hold that post in more than 50 years.   read more

With the 2013 election of Horacio Cartes as Paraguay’s president, Rojas was made Minister of Finance. His tenure there was seen as successful, with Rojas being named Finance Minister of the Year in 2014 for his stewardship of the country’s finances. He was also made chairman of the boards of governors of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Rojas left the ministry in early 2015, saying it was for personal reasons, but more likely because of differences with Cartes over tax reforms.   read more

He joined the Foreign Service in 1981 and his first U.S. assignment came in 1983, when he was named cultural attaché at the embassy in Washington. Waldner then served briefly as personal secretary to Foreign Minister Alois Mock before being named in 1988 to lead the Austrian Cultural Institute in New York, a post he held until 1999. Waldner did take time out to work on the successful 1992 and 1998 presidential campaigns of Thomas Klestil.   read more

Mara was sent overseas again in 2008 as counselor in the Fiji embassy in Brussels, but returned home the following year to become the ministry’s Permanent Secretary. In 2011, Mara was made High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, with concurrent responsibilities as ambassador to Germany, Denmark, Israel, Ireland and the Holy See.   read more

Sada is certainly aware of his charge to counter the negative statements Trump has made about Mexico. Sada’s predecessor, Miguel Basañez Ebergenyi, had been criticized for his lackluster response to Trump’s disparaging remarks about Mexican undocumented immigrants. Consequently, President Enrique Peña Nieto nominated Sada to replace Basañez. “We need to do a more thorough job so that people understand what (Mexico) contributes,” Sada said after being sworn in.   read more

Dos Santos took his first ambassadorial post in 1996 as his country’s permanent representative to the United Nations. While there, he was named secretary general of a convention to ban landmines, an issue close to his heart because of the millions of mines planted in Mozambique during the civil war. He also worked to stop small arms proliferation, another vital issue in his country.   read more

Hockey was made treasurer.but ran into trouble when he presented his first budget. It called for cuts to family payments, punitive measures for unemployed young people, a Medicare co-payment, removal of caps on university fees, and $80 billion (Australian) in long-term cuts to health and education funding. He also announced an unpopular increase in fuel taxes. He defended the increase, saying “the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.”   read more

In 2005, Hrle moved to the embassy in Vienna, Austria and served as chargé d’affaires, becoming ambassador in 2008. While he was in charge there, a Bosnian general, Jovan Divjak, who had been accused of war crimes by Serbia, was arrested in Vienna. Divjak was eventually released without being extradited to Serbia. Hrle returned home in 2011 to work in the ministry’s office of public relations. In 2013, he was made ambassador to Saudi Arabia with responsibility for Oman and Yemen as well.   read more

Thomas worked at the Bank of New York for 22 years, eventually serving as vice president and regional manager. Beginning in 2004, he worked independently in the banking industry. He took time out in 2007 to run for parliament in Jamaica. He was the candidate of the People’s National Party, but lost. In 2010 he returned to the University of the West Indies as a senior teaching fellow in the Mona School of Business and Management. Thomas was tapped in 2013 to be Jamaica’s ambassador to China.   read more

Balumuene served in 2000 as diplomatic and administrative assistant to the deputy commissioner general of the Government for MONUC Affairs, in charge of finance, logistics and foreign policy for the UN peacekeeping effort in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Later that year, he was made chargé d’affaires at the embassy to South Africa in Pretoria. In 2003, Balumuene was sent to India as his country’s ambassador. He then became dean of New Delhi’s diplomatic corps.   read more

The first assignment was as deputy permanent representative to the EU, then in 2007 he was made director of the private office of the secretary general of NATO. He returned to The Hague briefly in 2009 for a stint as director of the ministry’s North Africa and Middle East department, but was back in Brussels the following year, this time as ambassador to Belgium, where he served until being sent to Washington.   read more

In 2003, she went to Berlin as the deputy chief of mission in Finland’s embassy there. In 2005, she moved to Vienna as ambassador to Austria and to serve as her country’s representatives to the United Nation organizations there. During that time, she also served for three years as the Finnish Governor on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors. In 2008, she was elected vice-chair of the agency.   read more

In 2006 Maior was tapped to head the Romanian Intelligence Service. In 2015, in that capacity, he supported proposals to retain data and personal information on Romanian citizens. He resigned after the country’s high court rejected those proposals. Shortly thereafter, Maior was given the job in Washington. One of the goals Maior is pursuing is to have Romania accepted as a participant in the U.S. visa waiver program, which would make it easier for Romanians to come to the United States.   read more