User:Sundhma/Mattias Sundholm

Mattias Sundholm is Special Adviser on Communications and Advocacy to the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), based in New York. Having started working for Margot Wallström, Sundholm is since September 2012 serving the current SRSG-SVC, Zainab Hawa Bangura.

Prior to his UN position, Sundholm 2006-2010 served as Deputy Spokesperson and Deputy Head of Press and Public Diplomacy, the largest operational department of the European Union (EU) Delegation to the United States, based in Washington, DC. In this capacity, he was the face and voice of the EU in the US, charged with promoting the EU's positions and policies throughout the United States, a central plank in the EU's public diplomacy strategy for the country. As Communications Officer on Development 2004-2006 with the European Commission Headquarters in Brussels, the executive branch of the European Union (the world's biggest development aid donor), Sundholm worked for the EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.

From 2002 to 2004, Sundholm was a Swedish diplomat serving with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the Ministry in Stockholm, he followed the Ministry's Diplomatic Training Programme. He also worked as Spokesperson for the Ministry and as Desk Officer for the Western Balkans. In the latter capacity, he was briefly posted to the Embassy of Sweden in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). He was also posted to Zimbabwe as Second Secretary at the Embassy of Sweden in Harare, where he was reporting on political and economic issues, including media, parliamentary affairs and the controversial land reform.

Furthermore, Sundholm has worked as a consultant for French consultancy firm FI System, based in Brussels –- focusing on European Affairs and public relations –- and for three years as a journalist for Scandinavia's biggest daily in print and on the web: Aftonbladet.

Sundholm has an M.Sc. in Political Science and Government from Uppsala University and the Institut d'études politiques (Sciences-Po) in Paris, and an M.A. degree in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). He is fluent in Swedish, English and French, and speaks some German and Spanish.