Mirjana Spoljaric Egger
President
ICRC
Mirjana Spoljaric Egger is a Swiss-Croatian diplomat who became President of the ICRC in October 2022, succeeding Peter Maurer. Born in Croatia, she studied philosophy, international law, and economics at the universities of Basel and Geneva. Before joining the ICRC, she served as UN Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of the UN Development Programme (2018-2022), and previously held senior roles in the Swiss foreign affairs department, including as ambassador heading the division for the UN and international organisations. From 2010 to 2012 she was seconded to the Office of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA as senior adviser. She was re-elected for a second four-year term in February 2026.
Mirjana Spoljaric Egger has led the ICRC through a period of compounding crises: multiplying armed conflicts, an erosion of respect for the Geneva Conventions, and severe funding cuts from major donors. Under her presidency, the organisation has had to make painful adjustments, slashing its 2026 budget by 17 percent to CHF 1.8 billion and cutting a further 2,900 positions on top of the approximately 4,000 lost in 2023-2024.
Her tenure has been defined by what she has described as “a dangerous convergence of escalating armed conflicts, significant cuts to aid funding and a systemic tolerance for grave breaches of international humanitarian law.” The ICRC’s operational space has contracted sharply, with humanitarian access increasingly obstructed in conflicts from Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar. Spoljaric has been vocal about the politicisation of humanitarian action and the growing risks faced by humanitarian personnel in the field.
Before the ICRC, her career bridged diplomacy and development. At UNDP, she directed the regional bureau for Europe and the CIS. In Swiss foreign affairs, she shaped multilateral policy across the main UN organs. Her secondment to UNRWA from 2010 to 2012, where she advised on organisational reform and external relations, gave her direct exposure to the politics of humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.
She speaks English, French, German, and Croatian.