Vangelis (Evangelos) Vitalis is a New Zealand diplomat and trade negotiator currently working as the Deputy Secretary for the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Prior to taking up his role in Wellington in 2017, Vangelis was New Zealand’s Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva where he chaired the agriculture negotiations in a personal capacity. In this role he helped draft the text of the historic Nairobi WTO Ministerial Decision to eliminate agricultural export subsidies. Vangelis has also been the Ambassador to the European Union and NATO in Brussels and has had postings to Canberra and Moscow. Vitalis is the first Greek-New Zealander to be appointed ambassador. Career Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Wellington, New Zealand Vitalis is believed to have joined the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in late 1993, during which time he worked on the Africa Desk and subsequently worked for three months in New York as a junior New Zealand Foreign Ministry delegate to the United Nations General Assembly - this was also during the time that New Zealand was a member of the UN Security Council. On his return to New Zealand, Vitalis worked in the Ministry's Economic Division until he was posted to the New Zealand Embassy in Moscow as Second and then First Secretary followed (1997–1999), including a year's language training at the Moscow State Linguistic University (1996). Russian Ministry of Agriculture, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan Vitalis then worked for a time at the Russian Ministry of Agriculture as part of a team developing a partial equilibrium model to assess the potential impact of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization on its agricultural sector (1999–2000). Vitalis was an early advocate of the need to analyse Russia's agricultural policies at the federal and sub-federal level. He suggested that this was the only way to establish the full picture of Russian agricultural subsidisation a point reinforced in a paper he published on the subject. He also worked briefly during this period in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as an adviser on a range of diverse issues including currency reform and WTO accession. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France From 2001 to 2011, Vitalis worked in various roles at the OECD. Between 2001 and 2004 he worked in Paris for the OECD Secretariat as a Chief Adviser. In particular, he headed a unit charged with providing the