Kamalesh Sharma

Kamalesh Sharma (Hindi: कमलेश शर्मा ) ( born September 30, 1941) is an Indian diplomat and Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Biography

Sharma studied after school education at St. Stephen 's College in Delhi and King's College in Cambridge in 1965 and went into the diplomatic service. He was 1997-2002 Permanent Representative to the United Nations ( UN) in New York City. After that he was of 21 May 2002 to 21 May 2004 as the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General in East Timor. He was most recently between 2004 and 2008 High Commissioner (High Commissioner) in the UK.

On 1 April 2008 he was elected as the successor to Donald McKinnon as Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, making it the first Indian in a leading position of this compound by sovereign States, which is formed primarily by the United Kingdom and its former colonies. When choosing on the summit of the Commonwealth States in November 2007 in Kampala, he won against the then Maltese Foreign Minister Michael Frendo.

Since July 2009 he is the successor of the former U.S. Senator George J. Mitchell also Chancellor ( Chancellor ) of the Queen's University of Belfast.