Ms. Vani Rao is a career diplomat who served the Government of India since 1994. She holds the rank of Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. From August 2020 to March 2024, she led the Americas Division in the Ministry of External Affairs which dealt with India\u2019s relations with USA, Canada and the Quad framework. Prior to that, she was Ambassador to Finland and Estonia from 2017
to 2020. As Joint Secretary she was responsible for policies and initiatives for engagement with the Indian Diaspora from 2014 to 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She served from 2011 to 2014 as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Embassy of India, Israel. Her other diplomatic assignments were at the Indian Missions in Mexico and Sweden. Under Secretary in the Europe West Division and Director (Americas) in the Ministry of External Affairs. She has an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad, India, and an M.S. in Environmental Studies from San Jose State University in California, USA. She speaks English, Telugu, Hindi and Spanish. She is married and has one daughter. Her spouse is a technology advisor in emerging technologies to both startups and established companies. She assumed charge as India\u2019s Ambassador to Italy on 3rd April 2024. She is concurrently accredited to San Marino, with residence in Rome. She is India\u2019s Permanent Representative to the UN agencies based in Rome, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO); World Food Programme (WFP) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":25837,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n