Mohamed ElBaradei, who has served as the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 1997, will not be available to serve a fourth term. The selection process for a replacement to start in time for when ElBaradei clears his desk on 30 November 2009 will begin soon, with a candidate to be selected by consensus in June 2009 for approval at the general conference that September. An IAEA board-level memo shared with World Nuclear News set 30 December this year as the likely deadline for applicants to submit their CVs, of not more than four pages, to their national representative on the IAEA board. ElBaradei is the IAEA's fourth director general, coming after Hans Blix, who served from 1981 to 1997; Sigvard Eklund, who served from 1961 to 1981; and Sterling Cole, who led the agency from its inception in 1957 to 1961.