H.E. Thomas Schäfer hails from Oldenburg, Germany and he is a member of the Board of Advisors to the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy. During his career in the German Foreign Office, he was posted several times to East Asia and is the former German Ambassador to North Korea (2007-2010 and 2013-2018), and Guatemala (2010-2013). In Bonn and Berlin, he mainly focuses on arms control. He has PhD in German history from the University of Kiel in 1985. He is the author of the book, From Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un: How the Hardliners Prevailed: On the Political History of North Korea (2007-2020).