Edward Mortimer is Senior Vice President and the Chief Program Officer of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Based in the Salzburg office, Mr. Mortimer is responsible for the Seminar's global programming activities and its network of more than 20,000 professionals around the world. Mr. Mortimer came to Salzburg in 2007 from the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations where he served for eight years as head of the Speech Writing Unit and Director of Communications. He has spent much of his career as a journalist, first with The Times (London), where he developed an expertise in Middle East affairs, and later with the Financial Times, where from 1987 to 1998 he was the main commentator and columnist on foreign affairs. His 1982 book, Faith and Power: the Politics of Islam, was hailed by The Economist as essential reading for understanding the post-911 world. Mr. Mortimer has also served as a fellow and faculty at several institutions, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Oxford University, and the University of Warwick; and on the governing bodies of several non-governmental organizations, including Chatham House, the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, the John Stuart Mill Institute, Minority Rights Group International, the Agence France-Presse Foundation, and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Mr. Mortimer, who served as faculty chairman of a Salzburg seminar in the 1990s, was educated at Oxford University, where he studied history. He is a citizen of the United Kingdom, and in the 2010 New Year Honours he was named a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for services to international communication and journalism.