Mrs. Nirupama Rao, is a retired Indian Diplomat, Foreign Secretary and Ambassador. She was educated in India and joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1973. During her four-decade-long diplomatic career, she held several important assignments. Mrs. Nirupama Rao was India’s first woman spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, the first woman high commissioner to Sri Lanka and the first Indian Woman ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. She served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009-2011. At the end of that term, she was appointed India’s Ambassador to the United States where she served for a term of two years from 2011-2013.