Hamamoto Is New US Ambassador To UN In Geneva

The United Nations Office in Geneva today announced the official arrival of the new ambassador of the United States to the UN in Geneva, Pamela Hamamoto.

Hamamoto, from California, comes from a finance background with expertise in the telecommunications and energy sectors, and was a major fundraiser for President Obama. She is expected to have responsibility for UN agencies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and International Telecommunication Union.

She was nominated last September (IPW, US Policy, 6 September 2013).

Below is today’s UN press release:

“The new Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Pamela Hamamoto, today presented her credentials to Michael Møller, the Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Hamamoto had been serving as a member of the Board of Trustees at the Branson School, from 2012 to 2013, and as a member of the Board of Trustees at Marin County Day School, where she also chaired the Finance Committee and Audit Committee, from 2007 to 2013. From 1999 to 2008 she was a member of the Board of Trustees at Ring Mountain Day School, where she performed various leading functions.

Throughout the 1990s, Ms. Hamamoto worked as an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York and San Francisco, and at Merrill Lynch & Co. in Los Angeles, where she managed a broad array of equity and debt financings for large corporate clients. From 1986 to 1988, Ms. Hamamoto worked in the telecommunications industry, providing strategic guidance to GTE Corporation and GTE Hawaiian Tel. She began her career in the energy sector, working as a civil engineer for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. from 1983 to 1985. Ms. Hamamoto received a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Civil Engineering from Stanford University in 1983, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles Anderson School of Management in 1990. She is married with two children.”