Zdravko Ponoš

Ponoš was born to a Croatian Serb family in 1962 in Golubić, close to Knin in the Socialist Republic of Croatia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[1]

He points out that after finishing primary school in Golubić, he enrolled in the Secondary Technical School "Nikola Tesla" in Zagreb and the Secondary Technical School of the Army in the same city, but decided on a military school, because it was "something completely new and unknown".[1][2]

After graduating from the Military Academy, he continued his education, working in the troupe. He holds a master's degree in telecommunications from the School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, and has also completed military high schools and courses.

From 1988 to 2002, he was a Development and Equipment officer at the General Staff. He completed the European Security Course at the Geneva Center for Security Policy in 2003, and the Course for Senior Executors at the George Marshall Center in Germany in 2005.[1]

In the Ministry of Defense of Serbia and Montenegro, he was the head of the Department for Integration in the Directorate for International Military Cooperation until 2004, when he was appointed the head of that Directorate.[1]

Since October 2005, he has been the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro, and by the decision of the VSO Collegium on June 3, 2006, he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff.[1]

In December 2006, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, and then, by the decision of the President of Serbia Boris Tadić, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff.[1]

President Boris Tadić invoked his constitutional powers of commander-in-chief of the Serbian Armed Forces and dismissed Zdravko Ponoš on 30 December 2008 as Chief of the General Staff. Ponoš made public accusations against the Defense Minister Dragan Šutanovac in the media. It was also revealed that he had ignored the minister, and had not submitted a single report in a year.[3][4]

In January 2010, he was appointed Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Bilateral Relations while Vuk Jeremić was the minister. He was in that position until the change of government in 2012.[1]

He was the head of Vuk Jeremić's cabinet while he was the President of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly.[5]

He is the executive director of the Center for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), whose president is Vuk Jeremić.[5]

At the founding assembly of the People's Party, in October 2017, he was elected vice president of the party.[6] In November 2019, he was re-elected to that position.[7]