United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Major General Kristin Lund of Norway as the Head of Mission and Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).
 
Major General Lund succeeds Major General Arthur David Gawn of New Zealand, who will complete his assignment on 19 October 2017. The Secretary-General is grateful to Major General Gawn for his two years of dedicated leadership.
 
Since joining the Norwegian Army in 1979, Major General Lund has had a distinguished military career, with wide-ranging command and staff experience at both national and international levels, including as the Deputy Commander of the Norwegian Army Forces Command. In 2009, she was the Norwegian Army’s first female officer to be promoted to the rank of Major General, and was subsequently appointed as Chief of Staff of the Norwegian Home Guard.  From August 2014 to July 2016, Major General Lund served as Force Commander of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), becoming the first woman to serve as Force Commander in a United Nations peacekeeping operation.
 
Her previous assignments with the United Nations include deployment to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in 1986 and the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) from 1992–1993 and 1994-1995. Major General Lund also has extensive experience in multinational operations, including deployment to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and at the Headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2003-2004. Major General Lund has been a member of the Nordic Women Mediation Network since 2015. She currently serves as an advisor at the Norwegian Defence University College in Oslo. In 2017, she became a UNWOMEN Champion.
 
Born in 1958, Major General Lund graduated from the Norwegian Defence Command and Staff College, the Norwegian Defence University College, and the United States Army War College where she obtained a Master of Strategic Studies.