Carlos Filomeno Agostinho das Neves presented his credentials as São Tomé and Principe’s ambassador to the United States to President Barack Obama on December 3, 2013. Neves is concurrently serving as his country’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, a position he took over in September 2012.

Located off the western coast of Central Africa, São Tomé and Principe has a population of about 188,000.

Neves was born June 20, 1953. He attended college in Portugal, the former colonial ruler of São Tomé and Principe, earning a bachelor’s degree in history from Classic University of Lisbon and a master’s degree in the same subject from the University of Lisbon. His dissertation was “São Tomé and Principe in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century,” published in 1989.

Neves was his country’s ambassador to Portugal from 1991 to 1994 and was credentialed as ambassador to Spain from 1992 to 1994.

He was general secretary of the moderate Acçao Democratica Independente party beginning in 1994 and was elected to his country’s assembly the same year and was president of its economic affairs commission until 1998.

Neves was vice president of the assembly from 2002 to 2006. As international oil companies began to show interest in drilling in São Tomé and Principe’s territorial waters, Neves served as president of the assembly’s increasingly important oil and gas commission from 2004 to 2006. He served as advisor to the assembly from 2008 to 2009.

Subsequent to that, Neves was director of the national petroleum agency’s administrative and public department until being named ambassador to the UN in 2012.

Neves is married.

-Steve Straehley