Guy Ryder was elected as International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. He first joined the ILO 1998 as Director of the Bureau for Workers’ Activities and, from 1999, as Director of the Office of the Director-General. In 2002, he was appointed General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), of which he had previously been Director of in 1993. Prior to the ILO, Mr Ryder began his career in 1981 as assistant at the International Department of the Trade Union Congress in London and held the position of Secretary of the Industry Trade Section of the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees (FIET) in Geneva from 1985 to 1988. He studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool.