He graduated in Law at the University of Vienna and completed postgraduate studies in Bologna and Washington (Johns Hopkins University – SAIS). He worked in the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 2021 and represented Austria as Ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Iran and in the People’s Republic of China. He was appointed as Managing Director of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of the Austrian Development Cooperation, in June 2021. In this position, he is responsible for the implementation of programmes and projects in more than 70 countries, especially in eleven priority countries in Africa and Asia as well as in South East and Eastern Europe.