About the Press & Public Diplomacy Team

Washington Delegation Press Room

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE - MATTIAS SUNDHOLM

Mattias Sundholm has been the Deputy Spokesman for the European Commission Delegation to the US, based in Washington, DC, since September 2006. In this capacity, he is also the Deputy Head of the Delegation’s Press and Public Diplomacy Section charged with promoting the EU’s positions and policies throughout the United States, a central plank in the EU’s public diplomacy strategy for the US.

Prior to his current position, he was Information and Communications Coordinator in the Directorate General for Development in the Commission Headquarters in Brussels, a department in charge of relations between the European Commission and Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific in terms of development assistance.

From 2002 to 2004, Sundholm worked as a Swedish diplomat serving with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the Ministry in Stockholm, he followed the Ministry's Diplomatic Training Program. He also worked as Spokesperson for the Ministry and as Desk Officer for the Western Balkans. In the latter capacity, he was briefly posted to the Embassy of Sweden in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). He was also posted to Zimbabwe as Second Secretary at the Embassy of Sweden in Harare, where he was reporting on political and economic issues, including media, parliamentary affairs and the controversial land reform.

Furthermore, he has worked as a consultant for French consultancy firm FI System, based in Brussels--and focused on European Affairs and public relations--and for three years as a journalist for Scandinavia's biggest daily in print and on the web: Aftonbladet.

Sundholm has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Uppsala and the Institut d'études politiques (Sciences-Po) in Paris, and an M.A. degree in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). He is fluent in Swedish, English and French.

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