Stefana was just over 30 when she started standing behind the world’s most important leaders in order to protect them. She was among the newcomers to the UN team in New York and, for the first time in her career, she was providing security for a head of state: she was to be Joe Biden’s guard of honor. It was a first for both of them: she – security officer on the podium, he – US President at the UN. The spotlights at their largest and most intense.
Ștefana Mărginean (Moldovan) was born in the north of Transylvania, in a village of 500 people, at the end of summer, when the wounds of the first miners’ revolt were still festering 400 km south, in the capital, Bucharest. From Uila (Batoș, Mureș), she went to the Police Academy in Bucharest, graduated law school in Sibiu and went on to the University of Babeș Bolyai for a master’s degree in sociology.
And all the way she kept going until she reached the UN, in New York. In the words of the head of the organization’s Safety and Security Service, from the moment she was recruited: „Why not? Just as long as you can”.
- The United Nations (UN) is the world’s largest and best-known international organization and the most representative of global efforts to secure world peace. It was founded in October 1945 and today has 193 member states around the world. Romania has been a UN member since 1955.
The UN headquarters, where Ștefana works as an investigative security officer, functions as an „autonomous”, extra-national, embassy-like zone, but the space is under US jurisdiction and law.
In addition to her main function, on an occasional basis, and following a voluntary selection, Ștefana is also a protection officer for heads of state or government officials visiting the headquarters or meeting with the UN Secretary-General. She got to do this without any experience in Romania because she has never held a similar position here. Like her, other Romanians, including her husband, have ended up providing security at the UN or working in other jobs.
Ștefana also performs honor guard duty at special events, such as commemorations of UN colleagues, meetings between heads of state and the secretary-general or UN flag ceremonies.
She arrived there from a world far removed from what she would find in New York, with mentalities and customs entrenched in other systems of thought and values, and where there are no posts or functions like the ones she was to fulfill.
She felt unprepared but confident, even though she didn’t know what lay ahead, but she was excited and wanted to bridge the gap between worlds. So she dared. A lot.
Ștefana is not shrouded in modesty and says she is proud of how she has managed to perform, without props, in the unknown, under the pressure of a very competitive system.
With ambition and optimism, coupled with passion. That’s how he ended up with some of the world’s most important heads of state:
- „I didn’t know much, because I never set out to live in another country. That was not my goal (…) It’s interesting how expectations at home are never the same as what you find. Everything gets turned upside down and takes on new forms for which I didn’t have a „model” in Romania. The fact is that here everything happens on a different scale. It’s more complex and fascinating,” explains Ștefana Mărginean.
The first head of state Ștefana saw was Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil’s president from 2019-2022), as he is traditionally the first to address the UN General Assembly. She also provided the guard of honor for Joe Biden or Volodimir Zelenski, in the middle of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Stefana participated in the recruitment process in 2019 by applying on their „inspira” platform to a job opening advertisement for Security Officer. She was then invited to participate in the actual competition which consisted of an eliminatory sports test, followed by a written test and an oral interview. Ștefana applied in February 2019, sat the exams in June 2019 and was actually hired in December 2019. Last year she was selected for the recruitment promotion video below.
The young woman came to the UN „out of a great personal and professional curiosity” and a thirst for challenges. She likes things that are not easy, likes to maintain control in order to promote safety, is over-ambitious and, above all, likes order and things done professionally.
The lives of the most important leaders in the world depend on Ștefana and her colleagues in the organization’s security department when they are at the UN headquarters.
If the life of one of the heads of state under their watch is in danger, Ștefana and her colleagues are obliged to intervene to ensure the maximum possible protection, „according to the circumstances”.
In other words, security officers are responsible with their own lives for the lives of the heads of state in their care.
She was first put in this situation with Joe Biden himself in 2021, his first year in office. She was stepping out on the UN podium for the first time in her career, under the „biggest and most intense” spotlight, and Biden was there for the first time as the most powerful man in the world.
The next day, both were on the front page of The New York Times.
Stefana stood motionless for the 40 minutes of Biden’s speech, during which time she was being filmed live by CNN and all of POTUS’ social media platforms.
- „The impressions of the moment were overwhelming because of the human apparatus behind every head of state, let alone America’s president. I was very nervous because I was about to have my first (the biggest and most intense) spotlight outing with Biden in his first year in office. It was also my first outing ever on that podium, which can be considered one of the most important stages in the world. It was a first for both of us at the same time. I was helped by my professional focus and determination not to fail, knowing that any small mistake would be caught by the cameras and cameras of the world’s media. I was live on CNN and the POTUS’s social media platforms, and appeared the next day on the front page of The New York Times. Biden’s speech lasted 40 minutes, and towards the end I felt like I had to relax my body so as not to make any sudden movements because of the tension. Everything went perfectly and the coordination with my colleague with whom I walked on the podium was impeccable (he is also Romanian). It was a success that gave me a lot of self-confidence,” says Ștefana.
Among those she met and escorted, the most charismatic seemed to be French President Emmanuel Macron and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
She doesn’t have a favorite head of state, but she likes women presidents, as well as the feeling she gets when they smile at her in a kind of feminine complicity. Maia Sandu, president of Moldova, was one of them.
If you ask her about tolerance, Ștefana will tell you that nowadays it’s a utopia, because otherwise we wouldn’t still do trainings or courses on unconscious bias. On freedom and democracy she has equally simple and comprehensive definitions:
- „I believe in the law of compensation. It is always confirmed to me in every spectrum of life. Tolerance is a utopia, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing „unconscious bias” courses today. Freedom is power – the power to respond „present” to any call. Democracy is chosing a lifestyle,” says the young woman.
For UN security officials, General Assembly meetings are the most defining moments of the year: the most important people in the world gather in the same place, and any unforeseen situation or last-minute element can turn one of the most complex and important meetings in the world into a fiasco directly proportional to the magnitude of the event.
- The United Nations General Assembly is one of the five organs of the UN and the only one in which all 193 member states have equal voting rights and equal powers. The Assembly oversees the UN budget, elects non-permanent members of the Security Council and meets annually. The first assembly was convened on January 10, 1946, in the central hall of the Palace of Westminster in London, when the UN had 55 members.
For example, an English downpour almost spoiled Prince William’s entire meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:
- „Each day during the General Assembly is difficult, especially when plans don’t go to plan, and this happens frequently, especially with VIPs. A challenging moment was when I realized that the success of a mission depended on me, but I managed to find solutions and turned a potential failure into a success. The funny memories are when unexpected things happen, such as the intense thunderstorm that occurred just as Prince William was coming to meet the Secretary General. In those five minutes, the umbrellas didn’t fulfill their role, but everything was handled excellently, and the ending was full of laughter – a pleasant memory of an English rain in New York,” recalls Stefana.
These are the most complicated, but also the most intense and anticipated times for security officers. Adrenaline, challenge, people with weaknesses and emotions instead of formal and gruff heads of state.
In many cases, the UN security officers even get to know them a little after a few days of accompanying them around the UN headquarters. But what does a day at the General Assembly look like from a security officer’s shoes?
- „It depends on many factors, depending on the duties you have as a security officer for that event. For me, the General Assembly is the most beautiful moment, even if it is very demanding. It gives you the feeling that you can normalize seeing almost all the world’s leaders in one week and being present in the most heavily guarded epicenter in the world, with the highest concentration of VIPs. When you work as a protection officer, escorting presidents and their delegations around the building to official events, you see almost everything they do and you even get to know them a little bit if you spend more than two days with them,” explains Ștefana.
But security officers do not interact informally with heads of state because protocol does not allow it. Ștefana exchanged a few words with French President Macron, at his initiative, and with Klaus Iohannis, whom she greeted backstage after having provided a guard of honor on the podium during his speech.
The discussions between security officers and heads of state are strictly professional, but the degree of closeness in the dialogs may or may not be more pronounced, depending on the way each person is, she explains. But they never cross professional boundaries:
- „Professional rigors and protocol don’t allow us to have informal conversations with heads of state, even if there is a more intimate backstage setting where it’s just them, their assistants, protocol staff and us security officers. Still, President Macron shook my hand and asked me how I was doing. I also spoke to President Iohannis after I did his guard of honor on the podium. I greeted him and told him I was Romanian, which seemed to surprise him,” she recalls.
After her UN experience, whether at 65, the maximum retirement age for the organization, or earlier, she will move from one corner of the world to another. And write.
But how does the young woman from Uila feel today, looking back at the village in the center of Transylvania from where she left more than two decades ago? What is it like to come from Uila to New York, from school, and be guard to world leaders?
- „It’s hard to describe the exact emotion, but I think ‘daring greatly’ best expresses how I feel. The self-confidence you already have, knowing that you have been chosen to represent the organization at such an important moment. I think I felt something similar to what Theodore Roosevelt said in his 1910 speech: „The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena […] who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly”. I have always been proud, without modesty, daring greatly, risking to fail or to succeed. So far, I have always succeeded”, concludes Ștefana Mărginean.
Ne bucurăm că ne citești!
Dacă vrei să ne și susții:
