Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon (Korean: 반기문; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was the South Korean minister of foreign affairs and trade between 2004 and 2006. Ban was initially considered to be a long shot for the office of Secretary-General of the United Nations; he began to campaign for the office in February 2006. As the foreign minister of South Korea, he was able to travel to all the countries on the United Nations Security Council, a manoeuvre that subsequently turned him into the campaign's front-runner.

On 13 October 2006, Ban was elected as the eighth secretary-general by the United Nations General Assembly. On 1 January 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. president George W. Bush, and on the Darfur conflict, where he helped persuade Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.

António Guterres was appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016 to be the successor of Ban Ki-moon as he exited on 31 December 2016. On 14 September 2017, Ban was elected chair of the International Olympic Committee's Ethics Commission. Also in 2017, Ban co-founded the nonprofit Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens. He also currently serves as the Distinguished Chair Professor at Yonsei University's Institute for Global Engagement and Empowerment.

On 20 February 2018, Ban was unanimously elected as the president of the Assembly and chair of the council of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). Ban also served as co-chair of the Global Center on Adaptation from 2018 to 2026, which has taken forward the work of the Global Commission on Adaptation through its programmes. In March 2026, the organisation announced the conclusion of his tenure as founding chair and that he would assume the role of GCA Chair Emeritus. He became the first major international diplomat to back the Green New Deal, a nascent effort by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the United States to zero out planet-warming emissions and end poverty over the next decade.