Brenden Varma
Brenden Varma is the Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the President of the 75th session of the General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Volkan Bozkir of Turkey. This is the second time Brenden has held this position, having served previously in the General Assembly’s 72nd session (2017-2018) under H.E. Mr. Miroslav Lajčák of Slovakia.
A United Nations (UN) official since 2002, Brenden most recently worked in the Outreach Division of the Department of Global Communications (DGC). He also served in the Department of Political Affairs as a Political Affairs Officer, covering the Americas, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa. In addition, he served as an Associate Spokesperson for former Secretaries-General Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan.
Regarding field experience, he was the Spokesperson and Head of Communications at the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); the Special Assistant to the Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM); and the Spokesperson and Head of Communications at the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) in Jerusalem.
Prior to joining the UN, he worked for ABC News in New York and the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom and a B.S. in Languages from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and completed course work at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Argentina. He is a United States national of Indian origin.
