In 1987, Maurer entered the Swiss Diplomatic Service (
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs), where he held various positions in Bern and
Pretoria, South Africa, before being transferred to
New York in 1996 as Deputy Permanent Observer at the Swiss Mission to the
United Nations. In 2000, he was appointed Ambassador and head of the division in charge of human security at the headquarters of
Switzerland's Foreign Ministry in Berne. In 2004, Maurer was appointed Ambassador and
Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in
New York. In this position, he endeavoured to integrate Switzerland, which had only recently joined the United Nations, into multilateral networks. In June 2009, the
United Nations General Assembly elected Maurer Chairman of the
Fifth Committee, in charge of United Nations administrative and budgetary affairs. In addition, he was elected Chairman of the
Burundi Configuration of the
UN Peacebuilding Commission. In January 2010, Maurer became Switzerland's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a position he held until he was elected President of the ICRC, succeeding
Jakob Kellenberger in June 2012. Maurer led the ICRC through a historic budget increase, from 1.1 billion CHF in 2011 to over 1.6 billion CHF in 2015. In addition, he launched the world's first "humanitarian impact bond" scheme, in which private investors lend €22 million of five-year funding and their repayments depend on what difference the project makes to its clients' lives. Since 2019, Maurer has been co-chairing the
World Economic Forum High-Level Group on Humanitarian Investing, alongside
Børge Brende and
Kristalina Georgieva. In September 2019, he was re-elected as the president of the ICRC for an additional term of 4 years, until October 2022, when he was succeeded by
Mirjana Spoljaric Egger. While president of the ICRC, Maurer earned an annual salary of up to CHF 437,000, while the ICRC was facing significant budget cuts. ==Other activities==