Background
He speaks French and Spanish as well as his mother tongue, English.
director General General Secretary
He speaks French and Spanish as well as his mother tongue, English.
Born in Liverpool (United Kingdom) in 1956, Guy Ryder studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool. He speaks French and Spanish as well as his mother tongue, English. He started his professional career in 1981 as assistant at the International Department of the Trades Union Congress in London.
He was previously General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) (2006-2010) and General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) (2002-2006). From 1985, he held the position of Secretary of the Industry Trade Section of the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees (FIET) in Geneva. In 1988, Guy Ryder became Assistant Director and – from 1993 - Director of the Geneva office of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
Guy Ryder first joined the International Labour Organization in 1998 as Director of the Bureau for Workers’ Activities and, from 1999, as Director of the Office of the Director-General.
In 2002, Ryder was appointed General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Brussels, where he led the process of global unification of the democratic international trade union movement. He also became a leading figure in the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), for which he spoke at the 2005 World Summit.
He was elected as first General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) when it was created in 2006. He headed international trade union delegations to high level talks with the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization and to the G20 Leaders’ Summits.
In September 2010, Guy Ryder came back to the International Labor Organization in Geneva as Executive Director, responsible for international labour standards and fundamental principles and rights at work.
Among other activities, he supervised the application of International Labor Organization Conventions and Recommendations. He also headed several high-level International Labor Organization missions to address a range of issues related to labour standards in countries such as Bahrain, Colombia, Fiji, Georgia, Greece, Myanmar and Swaziland. Guy Ryder was elected as International Labor Organization Director-General by the International Labor Organization"s Governing Body in May 2012 and took office on 1 October, 2012.
On taking office, he pledged to position the Organization as a determined actor translating principle into action and ensuring that it had the capacity to make a major difference to the working lives of people on all of the continents.
To support this he launched a major reform process geared to assuring the International Labor Organization’s authority on matters falling within its mandate.