Christoph Heusgen is a diplomat and the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. For more than a decade, he was the foreign and security policy advisor to Angela Merkel, whom he accompanied on all trips abroad. His close ties with America and his comprehensive concept of security have shaped his career over the past decades. Christoph Heusgen is considered to be very well networked internationally, right up to the upper echelons.
Heusgen (*1955) joined the Foreign Service in 1980 after studying and earning a doctorate in economics at St. Gallen, Georgia Southern University and the Sorbonne in Paris. Initially, he held a position at the Consulate General in Chicago, then worked at the Embassy in Paris. From 1988 to 1990 he is personal assistant to Rainer Barzel, the coordinator for Franco-German cooperation, and then deputy head of unit in the EU policy unit. From 1993 to 1997, Heusgen worked under Thomas Matussek as deputy head in the ministerial office of Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, after which he became head of the Europe sub-department as a ministerial assistant. From 1999 to 2005, Heusgen was Head of Office and Head of the Political Staff of Javier Solana, then High Representative for the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels.
From November 2005, as Ministerial Director, he headed Department 2, which is responsible for foreign policy in the Federal Chancellery, making him the foreign and security policy advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose close confidant he is considered to be. In July 2017, Heusgen became Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations. On 30 June 2021, Heusgen left the Foreign Service and succeeded Wolfgang Ischinger as Chairman of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of 2022.
Christoph Heusgen is an honorary professor at the University of St. Gallen and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Munich Security Conference.
He has received numerous awards for his work. He has been a recipient of the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold for services to the Republic of Austria since 2006, a Grand Officer of the Portuguese Order of Merit since 2009, and in 2015 he received the Cross of Honour of the German Armed Forces in Gold.
