His Excellency Navdeep Suri

H.E. Navdeep Suri is Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and Professor of Eminence at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. He was also co-chair of the FICCI National Committee on the Dubai Expo. He is an independent director on the boards of reputed companies and an advisor to several prestigious international organizations.

H.E. Navdeep Suri completed a distinguished 36-year career in the Indian Foreign Service in 2019, having served in India’s diplomatic missions in Cairo, Damascus, Washington, Dar es Salaam and London and as India’s Consul General in Johannesburg. He has also headed the West Africa and Public Diplomacy departments at the Ministry of External Affairs. He was India’s High Commissioner to Australia and Ambassador to Egypt and UAE. In a rare gesture, the President of UAE conferred on him the Order of Zayed II, the country’s second-highest civilian award. His innovative use of social media in public diplomacy in 2010 also received extensive recognition and two prestigious awards.

Navdeep Suri has learnt Arabic and French, has a master’s degree in economics and has written on India’s Africa policy, on the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, on Public Diplomacy and on the IT outsourcing industry. He has also co-edited the ORF-Global Policy book ‘A 2030 Vision for India’s Economic Diplomacy. His English translations of his grandfather Nanak Singh’s classic Punjabi novels have been published by Penguin as ‘The Watchmaker’ and by Harper Collins as ‘A Life Incomplete’ ‘Khooni Vaisakhi’ and ‘Hymns in Blood’.