Ambassador Julie J. Chung

Ambassador Julie Chung arrived in Colombo as the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka in February 2022. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, Ms. Chung has served in senior positions throughout the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere.

Ms. Chung most recently served as the Acting Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. She also has extensive experience in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, including as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Japan, Deputy Chief of Mission in Cambodia, and Economic Counselor in Thailand. In addition, she has served at the U.S. embassies in Iraq, Colombia, Vietnam, and Japan, and the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China. She also served as an advisor on nonproliferation discussions of the Agreed Framework with North Korea while working in the Office of Korean Affairs in Washington.

Ms. Chung is from Huntington Beach, California and joined the Foreign Service in 1996 in the first cohort of the Thomas R. Pickering Fellowship program. She received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California San Diego and an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University. Ms. Chung has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Secretary’s Distinguished Honor Award, and speaks Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Khmer.

H.E. MIZUKOSHI Hideaki

Ambassador MIZUKOSHI Hideaki handed over his credential and started to serve as the Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka since 16 November 2021. He served as the Director-General, Intelligence and Analysis Service, at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 2019.

H.E. MIZUKOSHI followed the Bachelor of Arts Degree at the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo. He started his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1985 soon after his graduation. H.E. Mizukoshi worked as Assistant Vice-Minister, Minister’s Secretariat and Global Issues Cooperation Division in 2014. In addition, he served as the Minister in Embassy of Japan in USA in 2011, Embassy of Japan in Republic of Korea in 2010 and Embassy of Japan in France in 1999

IWAMOTO Keiichi

Mr. IWAMOTO Keiichi is the Deputy Director-General, Southeast and Southwest Asian Affairs Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. He was the Minister, Embassy of Japan in the Lao PDR in 2019 and Director, First China and Mongolia Division, Asia and Oceania Affairs Bureau in 2017. In addition, he served as the Director, Economic Partnership Division, Economic Affairs Bureau and Negotiator, TPP Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat in 2015. He served as Counsellor, Embassy of Japan in the People’s Republic of China in 2010.

Mr. IWAMOTO followed Bachelors of Arts Degree for Chinese Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 1988 and he joined with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1990. In addition, he studied at Taiwan Normal University in 1992 and Studied International Politics at Beijing University in 1992. He followed Masters of Arts Degree for Regional Studies at the Graduated from Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University in 1995.

Amb (Retd.) Bernard Goonetilleke

Chairman, Pathfinder Foundation

A graduate in History and postgraduate in International Relations, Mr Bernard Goonetilleke spent nearly four decades promoting Sri Lanka’s tourism, trade and investment abroad as an officer of the Sri Lanka Foreign Service. He took over the post of chairmanship of Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management in August 2008 and later was appointed as Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau with effect from November and December 2008, respectively until February 2010.

His career as a Foreign Service officer began in 1970 and has included postings to Sri Lanka diplomatic missions in Kuala Lumpur, New York, Bangkok, Washington D.C., Geneva and Beijing. He has held several positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ending as Director General (Multilateral Affairs) (1997-2000), and Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2003-2004).

During his career, he served as Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva (1992-1997), during which period he was concurrently accredited to the Holy See and as Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Vienna. Later he served as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China (2000-2003), during which assignment he was concurrently accredited as Ambassador to the People’s Republic of Mongolia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He also served as Acting Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in New York (2004-2005) and ended his diplomatic career as Ambassador to the United States of America (2005-2008).

Following the Signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in 2002, he was appointed as Director-General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) and functioned as a member of the government negotiating team. Since May 2010 he functions as director of several companies associated with Mercantile Merchant Bank (MMBL), and Chairperson of Pathfinder Foundation

Amb (Retd.) Shivshankar Menon

Former National Security Advisor of India & Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Social and Economic Progress

Ambassador Shivshankar Menon is currently a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University, India; Chairman, Advisory Board, Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi; Distinguished Fellow of Brookings India; Distin-guished Visiting Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore; Member, Board of Trustees, International Crisis Group; and, a Distinguished Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute, New York.

He was previously National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India, Jan 2010-May 2014; Foreign Secretary of India, October 2006-July 2009; and has served as the Indian Ambassador or High Commis-sioner to China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Israel.

In 2016 he published Choices; Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy (Brookings & Penguin Random House, 2016).

He has been a Fisher Family Fellow at the Kennedy School, Harvard University, 2015 and Richard Wil-helm Fellow at MIT in 2015. He was chosen one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy mag-azine in 2010.