Born on May 17, 1953 in the city of Alma-Ata (Almaty). Father – Kemel Tokayev (1923-1986), a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, a well-known writer, founder of a detective-adventure genre in Kazakh literature. Mother – Turar Shabarbayeva (1931-2000), worked for the Alma-Ata Teacher Training Institute of Foreign Languages. 

 

In 1975, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev graduates from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He got his pre-degree internship at the USSR Embassy in the People's Republic of China. In 1983-1984, he interned at the Beijing Linguistic Institute. In 1992, he graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

 

He started his career in 1975 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and was posted to the Soviet Embassy in the Republic of Singapore. In 1979, he returned to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1984 to 1985, he worked at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then was posted to the Soviet Embassy in China, where he served until 1991 as Second Secretary, First Secretary and Counsellor.

 

In 1992, he was appointed as the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 1993, he becomes the First Deputy Foreign Minister. In 1994, he was appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In March 1999, he becomes the Deputy Prime Minister. In October 1999, with the consent of the Parliament by the Decree of the President of Kazakhstan, he was appointed as the Prime Minister. In January 2002, he becomes the State Secretary – Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 2003 to 2007, he headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At this post, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was taking an active part in the global process of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

 

In January 2007, he was elected as the Chairman of the Senate of the Parliament. In 2008, as the Speaker of the upper chamber of the Kazakh parliament he was elected as the Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

 

In March 2011, he was appointed as the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva, as well as served as the Personal Representative of the UN Secretary-General at the Conference on Disarmament. In addition, he also held the position of the Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament. He was also elected as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the CIS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

 

On October 16, 2013, he was re-elected as the Chairman of the Senate of the Parliament.

 

On March 20, 2019, he takes the oath as the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

 

On June 9, 2019, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had won the early presidential election with 70.96%, and was elected as the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. On June 12, 2019, in accordance with the article 42 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, he took the oath of office and officially assumed the post of Head of State.

 

On November 20, 2022, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had won the early presidential election with 81.31%, and was re-elected as the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The inauguration ceremony was held on November 26, 2022.

 

Since April 2021, he was elected as the Chairman of the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan. Since January 2022,  he becomes the Chairman of the Security Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador. Doctor of Political Sciences. Full member of the World Academy of Humanities and Natural Sciences. Member of the Council of the Wise Men of the Munich Security Conference. Honorary Professor of the Shenzhen University (China) and the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Honorary President of Kazakhstan’s Council on Foreign Relations. Honorary Dean of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations. According to the Russian Biographical Society, he enters the list of winners of the “Man of the Year – 2018”. Over 13 years he headed Kazakhstan’s Table Tennis Federation.

He is the author of 10 books on international relations.

 

He has been awarded with numerous state awards of Kazakhstan and foreign countries, as well as with commemorative medals.

 

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev supports a healthy lifestyle. He is fond of reading fiction, political and memoir literature.