ITU Elections: Acceptance Speech

Mr Chairman
Excellencies
Distinguished Plenipotentiaries
Colleagues and friends
 
I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those Member States that have voted for me. I will make every effort to prove myself worthy of the confidence that you have placed in me and to meet the challenges facing us. My election has been a particularly happy one as it has not resulted in losing a candidate ! I would like to thank the UK government for nominating me for a second term and in particular Ambassador Judith Macgregor for her presence here and her support. I would also like to thank the ITU membership for its support during my first term, the TSB staff for their hard work, my fellow elected colleagues for their collaboration, and especially the Secretary-General for his leadership and inspiration. We are truly lucky to have such a wonderful Secretary-General, and congratulations again to Hamadoun and Houlin on their brilliant re-election. I really look forward to being part of the Secretary-General’s team for another four years.

And lastly….most importantly….I thank my lovely wife, Catherine for her tremendous support to me, without which I would not be where I am today.

I look forward to working with all the membership in my second term to take forward the initiatives taken during my first term and to further pursue the objective of making the ITU-T Sector even more relevant and valuable to the whole membership especially the developing countries.
 
Thank you all again, muchas gracias