senior management group

Angela  Kane, Under-Secretary-General for Management

On 13 May 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Ms. Angela Kane of Germany as Under-Secretary-General for Management. Ms. Kane, who assumed her new position on 1 June 2008, replaced Ms. Bárcena Ibarra of Mexico, who had been appointed as Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Ms. Kane has had a long and distinguished career in the United Nations. In addition to her substantive assignments, she has held various managerial functions, including with financial responsibility, and has served on many administrative task forces and working groups, focusing on human resources reform and other managerial issues. Most recently, since December 2005, Ms. Kane has been serving as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, a core function related to the prevention and resolution of conflicts.

She oversaw two large regional divisions, as well as the Department’s work related to decolonization and the question of Palestine, and supported several special political missions, notably in Iraq, Nepal and the Middle East. Previously, she served as Assistant Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management. A major focus of her work in the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management was the implementation of reform initiatives, integrated global management, the use of information technology tools and the repositioning of the Department as a proactive and efficient service provider. From 1999 to 2003, she held the position of Director in the Department of Political Affairs.

From 1995 to 1999, Ms. Kane held a managerial post in the Department of Public Information, where she was in charge of publications and the United Nations publishing policy, overseeing global marketing and sales, and information resources. She initiated the United Nations move into online publishing and was responsible for the development of the United Nations website, www.un.org, in all official languages.

Ms. Kane’s previous United Nations experience includes as Principal Officer for Political Affairs in the Office of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and Assistant to the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for the Central American Peace Process with the negotiations to end the conflict in El Salvador.

Her field experience includes Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), and postings in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand.

Prior to joining the Organization, Ms. Kane worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and for private industry in Europe. She attended university in Munich, Germany, and holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Born in 1948, Ms. Kane is married.