Jeffrey Tao

Jeffrey Tao was born in Shanghai, grew up in Hong Kong and attended university in England, graduating in 1971 with a BA Degree from the University of Sussex.

He came to New York in 1972 when he began his career as conference interpreter, joining the Chinese Section of the United Nations Interpretation Service that year. In 1983, he attained the position of Senior Interpreter. In 1987, he received a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from New York University.

As a simultaneous interpreter, Mr. Tao’s work runs the whole gamut of UN topics, from highly political and sensitive meetings of the Security Council, say, on Iraq and the Middle East, to many sessions of the Law of the Sea Conference, culminating in the signing of the Treaty, to specialized technical meetings on budgetary questions, weapons systems, the environment, trade law, statistics and international accounting. He has traveled extensively on UN assignment, e.g., to Rio de Janeiro for the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992 and to the International Meeting on Small Island Developing States held in Mauritius in January 2005. He also worked at meetings at the level of Heads of State or Government during the 50 th Anniversary of the United Nations in 1995 and the Millennium Summit in 2000.