Malcorra served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Field Support . She was appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in March 2008 , succeeding Jane Holl Lute . Prior to that , she had been chief operating officer and Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme , where she oversaw emergency and humanitarian operations in more than 80 countries . During the tsunami emergency in December 2004 , she led the first phase of the operational response and mustered human resources , budget , finance , information , technology , telecommunications , administration and security to deal with the disaster
tsunami emergency in December 2004
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
Susana Malcorra