Former UN and EU Special Envoy for Afghanistan; Visiting Professor at the John Hopkins University, Bologna Campus; Senior Visiting Fellow at the LSE, London

Ambassador Vendrell is the Chairman of the Board of the Afghanistan Analysis Network as well as Senior Consultant at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva. He works as the Visiting Professor in the School of Advance International Studies (SAIS) at the John Hopkins University, Bologna campus. He also gives lectures at the London School of Economics as the Visiting Senior Fellow. Among numerous significant diplomatic positions he held, belongs the position of Special Representative of the EU for Afghanistan in 2002 – 2008 as well as Personal Representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA) in 2000 – 2001. During his long diplomatic career mostly in the United Nations, he also worked as the Deputy Special Personal Representative of the Secretary General for East Timor (1993 – 1999), Special Envoy for Cambodia (1997 – 1998) and Papua New Guinea (1994 – 1998) as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1992).