Antonio Guterres will succeed Ban Ki-moon as the ninth secretary general of the United Nations. Guterres is by all accounts a good choice: a former prime minister of Portugal, he has a reputation for tackling and resolving tough problems. Guterres, however, lacks one qualification that was thought to be critical to the selection of the next U.N. secretary general: He is not a woman. It was widely believed that the next holder of that office would be a woman and the failure to follow through on that expectation is a reminder of the flaws in that selection process and the glass ceiling that more than half the world's population continues to confront.
There have been eight secretary generals in the history of the U.N. Guterres is the first to have been chief executive in his own country, serving as prime minister from 1995 to 2002. For the last decade, he has served as the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, one of the organization's most visible and high-pressure jobs, one that also familiarized him with some of the world's most pressing crises. During his tenure he was applauded for reorganizing the office, cutting spending and staff by half at the head office while maintaining the capacity to deal with an ever expanding refugee crisis.
He is considered to be "a diplomat's diplomat," able to speak four languages and ready to challenge those who oppose his work. Britain's U.N. ambassador called him "the strongest person in this field," while the U.S. ambassador said that he has "experience, vision and versatility across a range of areas."