Sven Alkalaj
Sven Alkalaj is a Bosnian diplomat who has served as Bosnia and Herzegovina's ambassador to the United States since June 2023. He previously served as the Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations from 2019 to 2023. Alkalaj also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2007 until 2012. He is the country's longest-serving foreign minister.
Alkalaj served as Bosnia and Herzegovina's inaugural ambassador to the United States from 1994 to 2000. He held the post of executive secretary of UNECE between 2012 and 2014 as well. He is one of the most prominent Bosnian Jews of Sephardic origin and has been a longtime member of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Early life and education
Alkalaj was born in Sarajevo on 11 November 1948 to a Sephardic Jewish father and a Bosnian Croat Catholic mother. The Alkalaj are a prominent Bosnian Jewish family, who settled in Sarajevo over 500 years ago when they fled the Spanish Inquisition. He was raised Jewish.Alkalaj graduated in mechanical engineering from the University of Sarajevo in 1974. He returned to the university and in 1987 earned a degree in international relations and economics, with a focus on Latin America. He attended the Executive Development Program and Corporate Finance Program of Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration in 1999.
In 2016, Alkalaj was awarded a PhD in International Relations and International Law by the University of Travnik, with a dissertation on the "Policy of the United Nations Security Council in the Process of International Recognition and Peace-Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina ". He was a visiting professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations, a for-profit business whose lack of university accreditation has put it under the spotlight of the news media, between 2015 and 2019, as well as an assistant professor at the University of Travnik from 2016 until 2017.
Executive career
From 1975 until 1985, Alkalaj worked at Petrolinvest as a commercial manager in Sarajevo. He would later work at Energoinvest, initially as a regional manager for the Middle and Far East in Sarajevo from 1985 until 1988, and then as a managing director in Bangkok, Thailand from 1988 until 1994.Diplomatic career
Following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992,, Alkalaj served as the first ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United States in Washington, D.C. from 23 June 1994 until 14 June 2000. He was also accredited to the Organization of American States from 2000 to 2003.From 2004 until 2007, Alkalaj was posted in Brussels as the ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Belgium and the Head of Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
From 11 January 2007 until 12 January 2012, Alkalaj served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first and second cabinets of Nikola Špirić, representing the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina, then led by Haris Silajdžić. Alkalaj's resignation as minister was demanded in 2007 after it was published in Bosnian media that he had taken Croatian citizenship in 2006 based upon his mother's lineage.
From 8 March 2012 to 8 April 2014, Alkalaj was the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. In July 2019, he was appointed by Bosnian Presidency member Željko Komšić as the Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations in New York City. On 30 June 2023, Alkalaj presented his credentials to U.S. president Joe Biden as the newly appointed ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United States.