Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh (2014 - 2018)
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh was appointed by President Truong Tan Sang as the fifth Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States of America in July 2014. He has also been accredited to the title of Senior Ambassador – the highest rank for a Vietnamese career diplomat. He arrived in Washington, D.C. in November 2014 and presented his Credentials to President Barack Obama on February 23, 2015.
From September 2011 to July 2014, Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh served as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in charge of relations with countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, and Vietnam's Senior Official to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN SOM Leader).
From September 2008 to September 2011, Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh held the position of Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vietnam's ASEAN SOM Leader.
From January 2007 to September 2008, Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh was Deputy Director General, then Director General and Vietnam's ASEAN SOM Leader.
Much of the earlier years of Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh's career in the foreign service was attached to MOFA's Department of International Organizations, where he started off as a desk officer in September 1980 before getting promoted to Assistant Director General in 1994, and then Deputy Director General in 1995, the position that he held until December 2003.
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh was posted twice to the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the United Nations in New York, first as an Attaché from January 1987 to January 1990 and then as a Minister Counselor and Deputy Permanent Representative from July 1996 to August 1999. His third posting was to the Embassy of Vietnam in Bangkok, Thailand as a Minister Counselor from December 2003 to January 2007.
Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh graduated from the University of Foreign Affairs, Hanoi, Vietnam in 1980 and earned a post-graduate degree at Canberra College of Advanced Education, Australia in 1985.
He is married to Mme. Hoang Bich Lien and has two children.