Stevo Pendarovski

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Pendarovski.

Pendarovski began his government career as Assistant-Minister for Public Relations in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and as head of the Analytical and Research Department of the ministry from 1998–2001.[6] He was the National Security and Chief Foreign Policy Adviser to President Boris Trajkovski from 2001 until Trajkovski's death in 2004. After leading the State Election Commission from 2004 to 2005, he went on to serve again as National Security and Chief Foreign Policy Adviser to the next President, Branko Crvenkovski, from 2005 to 2009.[7]

Since 2008, Pendarovski has been the Assistant Professor in International Security, Foreign Policy and Globalization at the University American College Skopje, where he teaches International Security, International Relations, Introduction to Politics, Globalization, Geopolitics, US Foreign Policy, EU Foreign and Security Policy and Small Countries in the World politics.[6]

On 4 March 2014, he was elected by the main opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia as its candidate for the April 2014 presidential election.[8]

He also became a presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia and the Democratic Union for Integration for the 2019 election.[9][10] Pendarovski won 436,212 votes in the second round of the presidential election, 51.66% of the votes cast.[6]

Pendarovski married Elizabeta Gjorgievska, a doctor who works at the Clinic for Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry and a professor at the Faculty of Dentistry UKIM in Skopje. They have one child.[11]