Hochschild succeeds Aurélien Agbénonci of Benin who was appointed Foreign Minister of his country in April 2016.  Ban thanked  Agbénonci for his service and commitment to support the political transition in the country during a critical time between 2014 and 2016.

 Hochschild will also be the new UN Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in the country.

Most recently, he had been the Deputy to the UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser for the Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants. (The summit will be held on 19 September at the UN Headquarters in New York.)

Prior to that,  Hochschild held the positions of the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Colombia, the Director of the Field Personnel Division in the UN Department of Field Support (DFS), and the Chief of Field Operations and Technical Cooperation in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

He has also served with a number of other UN entities, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and various humanitarian and peacekeeping missions.

 Hochschild started his UN career with UNHCR in Sudan in 1988 and has worked in several countries across the world.