Working in peace operations in the United Nations exposes you to a truly dynamic environment where variety certainly can be expected. There is always a new challenge – and it is my job to find the best solutions from a leadership perspective. If you have excellent analytical skills, a proven leadership ability, and sensitivity to the importance of maintaining gender balance in your team, then a career as a Chief or Director of Mission Support demands all of these attributes and more.

I joined the Organization as civilian staff after a distinguished military career. I believe this background has been of tremendous value in my United Nations career. I have worked in seven peacekeeping and special political missions, which has given me comprehensive knowledge and experience of managing complex missions in multiple environments. As Chief of Mission Support, I leverage my planning and coordination skills to manage the human and financial resources of multifunctional operations effectively and efficiently, while ensuring that my team is positioned to proactively support the mission’s requirements.

In my current role, I am responsible for ensuring seamless support to both the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) and the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) operations, which are spread across five countries. This dual function comprises responsibility for an integrated support service covering all key components of our operations including human resources, logistics, communications and information technology, engineering, facilities management, supply and central warehousing, medical, budget and finance, procurement, and property and information management. It is my job to support our military observers and humanitarian substantive staff who are stationed across the region.

One of the more unusual roles I have held was Chief of Mission Support for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Mission. I was responsible for providing support to the international community and the Syrian Arab Republic Government regarding the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons programme. It was particularly challenging to ensure the safety and security of my team while operating in this context.

I have held various positions at Headquarters in New York. Most recently as a Senior Support Officer with the Integrated Operational Team, I facilitated synergies between the political, military, police and administrative components to ensure that the mission budgets under my responsibility were successfully submitted to the legislative bodies.

Prior to this, I was Chief of the Entebbe Support Base, in Uganda, which serves as a regional support hub for a supply chain that operates through Eastern Africa. It was extremely satisfying to oversee the smooth expansion of the base, including the construction of additional warehousing, and a 500-personnel capacity transit camp. Our team also doubled the volume of cargo movement through the base within one month by streamlining processes to enhance the delivery of support to our regional clients. 

I believe the words “Mission Support” sum up the nature and priority of my tasks. The Support component of any mission will only be successful if its substantive clients, who are directly responsibility for executing the mission’s mandated tasks, are fully satisfied with the level of support they receive. While achieving this goal may often be challenging in peace operations, my focus is always to enhance service delivery to clients.