Speaker

Wojciech Ponikiewski (born 1963 in Rabat, Morocco) completed his master’s degree in economics at the University of Economics in Poznań in 1986, as well as postgraduate studies in European integration at the European University Centre in Nancy, France (1987), and in development economics at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium (1988). In 1990, he began working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and became one of the first diplomats of the new democratic Poland. He served in the Polish Mission to the UN in New York and later worked for the UN Secretariat and the UN Environment Programme in New York and Nairobi. In 1998, he became the director of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the Polish MFA. In 2001, with the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary, he was appointed Deputy Head of Mission at the Polish Embassy in Rome, with parallel accreditation to Malta and San Marino. After returning to Poland in 2008, he assumed the position of Director of the Department of Foreign Economic Policy. In 2010, he became the Director of the Americas Department. In October 2010, he was nominated as Poland’s Ambassador to Rome (with additional accreditation to Malta and San Marino). In 2015, he became the Director of the Department of the United Nations and Human Rights. In February 2016, under the law of December 30, 2015, amending the Civil Service Act by the Law and Justice government in Poland, he was removed from this position. With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, he transitioned to work for the UNICEF office in Poland, which dealt with the Ukrainian refugee crisis. As of July 2024, he reintegrated into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has been appointed Poland’s Ambassador to Athens. He is currently serving as the chargé d’affaires a.i. in Greece, awaiting the completion of his nomination process. He is fluent in English, French, and Italian.