Ambassador Ischinger has been Chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) since 2008 and teaches at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, where he is the director of the Center on International Security Policy (CISP). He advises the private sector, governments, and international organizations on strategic issues. He has published widely on foreign, security and defense policy issues.
Ambassador Ischinger had a very distinguished diplomatic career. From 2006 to 2008, he was the Federal Republic of Germany's Ambassador in London and from 2001 to 2006 in Washington, D.C. He served as Deputy Foreign Minister (State Secretary) of Germany from 1998 to 2001, and as Political Director of the Foreign Ministry from 1995 to 1998.
In 2007, he represented the European Union in the Troika negotiations on the future of Kosovo. In 2014, he served as the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-In-Office in the Ukraine crisis. In 2015, he chaired the OSCE “Eminent Persons Panel on European Security,” mandated to offer recommendations on how to build a more resilient European security architecture.
From 2008 to 2014, he was also Global Head of Government Relations at Allianz SE, Munich.
Wolfgang Ischinger studied law at the universities of Bonn and Geneva and obtained his law degree in 1972. He did graduate and postgraduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and at Harvard Law School, Cambridge/USA.
He serves on a number of corporate and non-profit boards and advisory councils. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the European Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Boards of the Atlantic Council, the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies (AICGS), the American Academy Berlin, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), of Atlantik-Brücke, the International Crisis Group (ICG; until 2018) and the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI; until 2018).
