Tribune Excertps

Zoran Jolevski is New Macedonian Ambassador to U.S.

Zoran Jolevski assumed duties as Macedonia's ambassador to the U.S. in mid-March and immediately had to deal with the American-Greek lobby.

He comes to the U.S. with a great deal of experience on the international scene having participated in more than a 100 international summits, forums and conferences. He also has held significant posts in Macedonia, has been a consultant within and outside Macedonia, has published five books and numerous articles and has spoken at major conferences world wide.

His activities in international summits, forums and conferences include: World Economic Forums in Davos, Switzerland, and New York; World Trade Organization (WTO) conferences, World Summit on Sustainable Development held in 2002 at Johannesburg; World Food Summit held in 2002 at Rome, the Conference for the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime held in 2000 at Palermo, Italy. He also served as First Secretary at Macedonia's Permanent Mission at the WTO and the UN, Geneva.

In Macedonia, he headed the Macedonian Business Environment Activity and the WTO Compliance Activity, both funded by the USAID. He also headed the cabinet of Macedonia's president, and he has held prominent positions within the ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Economy.

Politically, he was a campaign advisor to the late Boris Trajkovski when he ran for and won the presidency; he was economic and foreign policy advisor to Nikola Gruevski Macedonia's present Prime Minister, and he was a special adviser to Antonio Milososki, Macedonia's current Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Ambassador Jolevski holds a Ph.D. in International Economy, a masters in Law Science and a bachelor of economics from Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopie. He is fluent in English, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian and knows some French.

He was born and reared in Skopie, he and his wife Suzana have two teenage sons.