Behgjet Pacolli

Behgjet Isa Pacolli (born 30 August 1951) is a Kosovar Albanian politician and businessman who served as the first deputy prime minister of Kosovo and minister of foreign affairs from 2017 to 2019 under the Ramush Haradinaj government. Pacolli is a former president of Kosovo, and served as the first deputy prime minister of Kosovo between 2011 and 2014. Pacolli was one of the signatories of the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence. He is the major shareholder of Mabetex Group, a Swiss-based construction and civil-engineering company. Pacolli is also the president of the third biggest political party in Kosovo, the New Kosovo Alliance. He is believed to be the world's richest ethnic Albanian. Pacolli has also acted as a mediator in hostage recovery situations. Early life and education Pacolli is the son of Isa and Nazmije, the second of ten children. He completed his primary education in Marec and high school in Pristina. He is Kosovo Albanian by ethnicity but has Swiss citizenship as well (which he received in 1992). After receiving his bachelor's degree from the Hamburg Institute of Foreign Trade in 1974, he completed his military service in the Yugoslav army, and soon after joined an Austrian company, for which he worked as a sales representative for ex-Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland and Russia. Two years later, he moved to Switzerland and joined a Swiss company he had gotten to know in Moscow. Pacolli went to graduate school at the Mösinger Zurich Institute, where he received his master's degree in marketing and management. He speaks various foreign languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Serbian.