Sheila Sealy Monteith is a Jamaican career diplomat [1] currently serving as Jamaica Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Belgium [2] and Jamaican Permanent Representative to the European Union and United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO.
Monteith started her diplomatic career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rising through the ranks to the position of ambassador. [3] She was first appointed Jamaican Ambassador to Mexico with accreditation to Central America and later served as High Commissioner to Belize from 2005 to 2010 and transferred to Canada as High Commissioner serving from 2010 to 2014. [4] She was Under-Secretary for multilateral affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 2017, when she was appointed ambassador to Belgium and Permanent Representative to the European Union and UNESCO and accredited as non-resident ambassador to France, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. [5] [6]
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and often temporary diplomatic assignment. The word is also used informally for people who are known, without national appointment, to represent certain professions, activities, and fields of endeavor, such as sales.
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seatings at state dinners, the person to whom diplomatic credentials should be presented, and the title by which the diplomat should be addressed.
A permanent representative is a diplomat who is the head of a country's diplomatic mission to an international organisation.
Ismat Jahan is a Bangladeshi diplomat who is currently serving as the Permanent Observer of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to the European Union. From 2009 to 2016, she was Ambassador of Bangladesh to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union and from 2007 to 2009, she was the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations.
Ruchira Kamboj is an Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1987 batch, who currently serves as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations since August 2022. She has previously served as High Commissioner of India to South Africa, First female Indian Ambassador to Bhutan and Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO, Paris. She was the All India women's topper of the 1987 Civil Services batch and the topper of the 1987 Foreign Service batch.
Nimisha Jayant Madhvani is a Ugandan diplomat, formerly Uganda's Ambassador to the Nordic countries she was accredited to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. She was forced to step down after an investigation had started into corruption at the Danish Embassy.
Morgan Adokwei Brown is a lawyer and a Ghanaian diplomat. He was Ghana's Ambassador to Belgium from 2012 to 2016 and Ghana's High Commissioner to Zambia from 2016 to 2017.
Martine Schommer is a Luxembourg diplomat who has served as Ambassador to the People's Republic of China and to the Federal Republic of Germany. She has also represented Luxembourg as Permanent Representative to the European Union. Since September 2017, she has been Luxembourg's Permanent Representative to the OECD and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO.
Audra Plepytė is a Lithuanian career diplomat and ambassador. Since May 2021, she is the Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States and Mexico. From 2017, she was the Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the United Nations, where she was elected as the vice-president of the UNICEF Executive Board Bureau on January 12, 2021. Plepytė was the Lithuanian ambassador to Spain and UNWTO from 2010 to 2014.
Darja Bavdaž Kuret is a Slovenian diplomat, social scientist and women's rights advocate. Following several ambassadorial posts since 1995, she was appointed Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the United Nations in August 2017. Bavdaž Kuret is a keen supporter of equal rights for women. As of September 2023, Bavdaž Kuret is serving as Slovenia's Ambassador to Russia.
Vilma Kathleen McNish is a Jamaican diplomat who was their ambassador to Belgium, Permanent Representative to the European Union and UNESCO as well as having served, from 2001 until 2005 as Ambassador to Mexico, Central America and High Commissioner to Belize.
Vaqif Sadıqov is an Azerbaijani diplomat currently serving as Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union.
Marcia Yvette Gilbert-Roberts is a Jamaican bureaucrat and diplomat who served as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Jamaican Ambassador to several European countries including Germany, Spain and France.
Sharon Miller is a Jamaican bureaucrat and diplomat currently serving as Jamaica Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Jamaica to the Republics of Argentina, Paraguay, Federative Republic of Brazil, Chile, and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.
Shorna-Kay Richards is a Jamaican career diplomat currently serving as Jamaica ambassador to Japan. She previously served as the Director of the Bilateral Relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the United Nations in New York and served as Vice-Chair of the UN Disarmament Commission.
Wayne McCook is a Jamaican lawyer and career diplomat who was Jamaican first resident ambassador to China and served as Jamaica's permanent representative to the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland and Rome, Italy. After four decades of diplomatic career, McCook retired from public service to a private career where he served as senior adviser to the Director General of World Trade Organization (WTO).
