Lisa M. Buttenheim

Ms. Lisa M. Buttenheim is the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for the Department of Field Support She was previously the Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) from 2010 to June 2016.[2] She was appointed to the post by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 2 June 2010. She has extensive experience with the United Nations in political affairs and peacekeeping.

Before the appointment, she was Director of the Middle East and West Asia Division in the Department of Political Affairs from January 2009. She previously served in the same department as Director of the Asia and Pacific Division from January to December 2008. She was Director of the Asia and Middle East Division in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations from April 2004 to December 2007. She served as Director and Head of the United Nations Office in Belgrade from March 2003 to March 2004.

Between May 1997 and February 2003, Ms. Buttenheim was Senior Political Adviser in the Office of the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva. During the same period, she was also the acting Chief of Staff, Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Director and Senior Adviser in the Office of the Special Envoy for the Balkans in Geneva.

She joined the United Nations in March 1983 and held a number of positions in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the Office of the Under-Secretaries-General for Special Political Affairs in New York, and the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) in Jerusalem. Ms. Buttenheim holds a Master's degree in international economics and Middle East studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, D.C., and a bachelor's degree in political science and English from Stanford University.