Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal served as the Under-Secretary-General for Public Information at the United Nations from August 2012 to January 2015, succeeding Kiyotaka Akasaka. He is also the United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism, a position in which he coordinates the issue of multilingualism throughout the UN Secretariat. From 2005 to 2007, he was Head of Department for Crisis Management and Citizens Services, Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Vienna, Austria. In this position, he was involved in crisis management and negotiating international agreements.