Ambassador Petr Mareš is currently the Executive Director of the Visegrad Fund. He graduated with a PhD from the Institute of Czechoslovak and World History at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1988 and began his career in academia at the Central Trade Union Archive, Czechoslovak Film Institute, and at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, Prague. At Charles University, he served as director of the Institute of International Politics from 1993 to 1995 and then chair of the American Studies Department from 1995 to 1998. Petr Mareš began his work in politics in 1998 when he entered the Parliament of the Czech Republic. He would go on to serve as Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 to 2004 and then as Foreign Policy Advisor to the Minister of Defence from 2004 to 2006. Since 2006, he has had several foreign assignments for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including as Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Special Envoy for Eastern Partnership, and Consul General in Istanbul, Turkey. During this time, Petr Mareš has continued to publish numerous papers on the contemporary history of Czechoslovakia, world history, and international relations in English, Czech, and Russian.