Rafał Wiśniewski was born in Łódź in 1965.

He graduated from the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw. Before 1990, his texts were published in independent Catholic and underground media, and he was engaged in cooperation between democratic opposition circles in Poland and Hungary. His employers until 1991 included the University of Warsaw and the Centre for International Studies at the Polish Senate. In 1990, he was an advisor to Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki on the latter’s first visit to Hungary after the fall of communism, and in 1991, a member of the delegation headed by President Lech Wałęsa to the Budapest summit that established the Visegrád Group.

Between 1991 and 1997, he held the positions of second secretary, first secretary, and counsellor at the Polish Embassy in Budapest, while also heading the Polish Institute in Budapest (from 1992) and co-organizing the Polonia Express Festival of Polish Art in Hungary (1997).

Next, between 1997 and 1998, Rafał Wiśniewski was head of the Central Europe Unit at the MFA. Having come up with a concept for reforming Poland’s cultural diplomacy, he was first appointed foreign minister’s plenipotentiary for the promotion of Polish culture, and after that, coordinating director of the division for the promotion of Poland, foreign information policy, and foreign cultural and research policy (1998–2001). He contributed to the opening of a number of Polish Institutes, including in Kyiv, New York, Bucharest, Tel Aviv, Saint Petersburg, Madrid, and Brussels, to the work on the Polish edition of the Europalia Festival in Brussels (2001), and to the establishment of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw. He also co-authored (in 2001) of the government strategy for the promotion of Poland at the time of the country’s accession to the European Union.

Between 2001 and 2005, Rafał Wiśniewski was Poland’s ambassador to Hungary.

Between 2005 and 2007, he was Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responsible for development cooperation, economic cooperation, and public diplomacy. That period saw the emergence of a macroeconomic diplomacy division at the MFA and a substantial growth of the ministry’s budget for development cooperation.

Between 2007–2010, he was Director General of the Foreign Service. During his tenure, the MFA merged with the Office of the Committee for European Integration, and a building was acquired and adapted to house Poland’s largest diplomatic mission, the Permanent Representation to the EU. Also, a new seat of the Consulate General in Lviv was put into operation as the world’s largest consular office at that time.

Between 2010 and 2015, Rafał Wiśniewski was Poland’s ambassador to Denmark.

He is married and has two adult daughters. As years go by, his interests increasingly revolve around the future.

He speaks English and Hungarian.

 

Director-General and Head of the Foreign Service Rafał Wiśniewski coordinates the process of human resources management in the foreign service, provides support for the work of the Foreign Service Council, a body responsible for evaluating candidates for ambassadorial posts, and heads the Diplomatic Academy. He also fulfils and coordinates tasks of the director-general of the foreign service as set out in acts of law.