CURRICULUM VITAE
Mr. Roman Kirn
Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia to the USA and Mexico
Mr. Roman Kirn began his professional diplomatic career at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of SFR Yugoslavia in 1977. He also served on the Committee on Foreign Relations of Slovenia in Ljubljana, from 1978 to 1980. He rejoined the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 and served as First Secretary at the Embassy of SFR Yugoslavia in Rangoon/Burma. He returned to Slovenia in 1984, where he worked on the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Slovenia until 1990, in charge of regional cooperation.
After Slovenia gained its independence in 1991 he was appointed as Director of the Multilateral Relations Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. From 1992 to 1996 he served as Minister Counselor at the Embassy of Slovenia in Prague, Czech Republic. Mr. Kirn was appointed State Undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry in 1996, in charge of multilateral affairs. In this period he was engaged primarily with UN and NATO related issues. He was a member to a number of Slovenian delegations at the UN General Assembly sessions. He also was the head of delegation to the Ottawa Process that negotiated the convention on prohibition of anti-personnel landmines. Furthermore, he was a co-founder of a joint Slovenian-US project, the International Trust Fund for demining and mine victims’ assistance (ITF) in South East Europe, and he served as first Chairman of the Managing Board. He was also in charge of the campaign for Slovenia gaining its first UN Security Council non-permanent seat in 1997.
In August 1996, he joined a VIP program for NATO candidates in Norfolk, at the invitation of the US State Department.
Prior to his appointment in July 2002 as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the United Nations in New York, Mr. Kirn served two years (2000-2002) as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Vienna. He served as Ambassador to the UN until December 2006. During this tenure, he held different positions and responsibilities: Vice Chairman of the UNICEF Executive Board, Vice President of the UN General Assembly, Vice President of the 2005 NPT Review Conference, Facilitator for Revitalization of UN General Assembly, and Facilitator for UN Reform.
In January 2007, he rejoined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was appointed as Director of the Department for North and Latin America and the Caribbean. During the Slovenian EU Presidency, he was in charge of transatlantic relations and preparations for the EU-US Summit, held in Slovenia in June 2008.
Roman Kirn was appointed Ambassador of Slovenia to the United States of America on May 26, 2009 and to the United Mexican States on January 20, 2011.
Mr. Kirn holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Ljubljana (1976), and he speaks English, French, Czech and Serbian/Croatian.
Mr. Kirn was born in Trbovlje, Slovenia, on February 23, 1952, and he is married to Jovana Kirn. They have two children.
