New heads of mission
Kaarlo (Charles) Arnold Marius Murto
Ambassador of Finland
Mr. Murto is a career diplomat who joined the ministry of foreign affairs after a one-year stint selling newsprint for the Finnish Paper Mills Association.
He began his diplomatic career in 1970 as an attaché in the protocol department. His first posting came two years later, to Spain, after which he was sent to Indonesia. He returned to the ministry briefly before being sent to Brussels as first secretary. There were two more stints at headquarters before he became deputy head-of-mission in Paris. He then became ambassador to Australia (with accreditation to New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea.) He returned to Finland for five years as director general for administrative affairs before becoming ambassador to Spain and Andorra and then ambassador to France and Monaco.
His most recent posting, prior to coming to Canada, was as director of the national security authority. Mr. Murto is married and has three children.
Werner Wnendt
Ambassador of Germany
Prior to his current position, Mr. Wnendt was director-general for culture and communication at the federal foreign office in Berlin.
Until 2007, Mr. Wnendt was head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, after completing an assignment as senior deputy high representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2003 to 2005.
Between 2000 and 2003, Mr. Wnendt served as a foreign adviser to Germany’s federal president. From 1998, he was the deputy head of mission at Germany’s mission in the Czech Republic, and prior to that, he spent three years as chief of cabinet of the minister of state for European integration.
Mr. Wnendt joined the German Foreign Service in 1980. He has held positions in missions to the European Union in Brussels and in the U.S., Pakistan and Kenya.
Mr. Wnendt is married and has five children.
Samuel Valis-Akyianu
High Commissioner for Ghana
By trade and training, Mr. Valis-Akyianu is a fire engineer. He studied at the fire service technical college in Gloucester, England.
His relevant career details began in 1996 when he spent a year serving as miniser for the central region of Ghana. In 1997, he was appointed Ghana’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, where he spent four years. He then became central regional chairman to the National Democratic Congress for four years and then, in 2009, he became Ghana’s ambassador to Serbia.
His extracurricular experience is vast: He was president of the Ghana amateur boxing association, and vice-president of the Ghana handball association. He is a member of the Institute of Fire Engineers, the National Fire Prevention Association (U.S.), the Ghana Red Cross and he is a founding member of the Ghana Olympic Committee.
Mr. Valis-Akyianu is married and has seven children.
Vytautus Zalys
Ambassador of Lithuania
Mr. Zalys’ career has swung between diplomacy and academia over the past 22 years.
After completing a PhD in history, he went to work as a senior research fellow at the Institute of History, at Lithuania’s Academy of Science. Four years later, he became adviser to the deputy minister of foreign affairs and, two years later, returned to the institute as deputy director. He was then sent to Washington as first secretary and later, counsellor. He then did a four-year stint as editor of Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review while also serving as an associate professor at the University of Vilnius. In addition, he has served as head of the Asia, Africa and Pacific division, consul-general in Kaliningrad, director of the Eastern Europe and Central department and ambassador to Moldova between being sent to Canada.
Mr. Zalys is married with one child.
Ojo Uma Maduekwe
High Commissioner for Nigeria
Mr. Maduekwe comes to diplomacy from politics. In the 1980s, he was a member of the national assembly of Nigeria and a member of the constituent assembly, struck to complete a constitution after a military coup. He spent two years as an adviser to the chairman of the Social Democratic Party and, from 1993 to 1995, served as adviser to the minister of foreign affairs. In 1997, he was a member and technical adviser for VISION 2010.
Between 1999 and 2000, he was Nigeria’s minister of culture and tourism, followed by three years as minister of transport. Between 2005 and 2007, he was national secretary for the People’s Democratic Party and then spent three years as Nigeria’s foreign minister. He was deputy director general of the Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign before being posted to Canada.
Mr. Maduekwe is married and is a lawyer by trade.
Mona Elisabeth Brøther
Ambassador of Norway
Mona E. Brøther studied at the University of Oslo and holds degrees in history, Spanish and political science.
She joined the foreign service of Norway in 1979 and has had a number of postings abroad, most recently as ambassador to Chile (2000-2005) and ambassador to Venezuela (2008-2009). Her main area of work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been within information and cultural promotion, but she has also been involved in the Norwegian agenda on sustainable development since the Brundtland report in 1987. Between 1998 and 2000, she was head of foreign affairs’ section for sustainable development.
She was project co-ordinator for the global initiative on legal empowerment of the poor in 2008. Since 2009, she has been deputy director general of the department for cultural promotion, public diplomacy and protocol at the ministry of foreign affairs.
Membathisi Mphumzi Shepherd Mdladlana
High Commissioner for South Africa
Mr. Mdladlana began his career as a teacher and spent 10 years teaching before spending one year as a primary school principal. At that time, he became the first and founding president of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, the country’s largest and an affiliate of the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU). He was also a member of the African National Congress for many years, until 2007.
In 1994, he became a Member of Parliament and served on various parliamentary committees, including education and domestic affairs. President Nelson Mandela appointed him to his cabinet as minister of labour in 1998. He served all four presidents of the Republic of South Africa — Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Montlanthe and Jacob Zuma — as minister of labour until 2010.
Mr. Mdladlana has a bachelor of arts. He’s divorced and has six children. Two daughters join him in Canada.
Carlos Gómez-Múgica
Ambassador of Spain
Mr. Gómez-Múgica studied law and economics at the University of Navarre in Spain before completing a post-graduate diploma in international affairs. He has a postgraduate degree in international affairs from the Spanish Diplomatic School.
He began his diplomatic career in 1978 with his first posting, to Turkey, as deputy head-of-mission. He was then sent to Argentina as consul for four years before returning to Madrid. He served as counsellor at the embassy in Paris for four years before becoming an adviser to the minister of defence for six years.
With the title of ambassador, Mr. Gómez-Múgica went to Honduras in 1995 and served as ambassador-at-large for Iberoamerican Summits for two years before being posted to Colombia. He was ambassador to Belgium and then ambassador-at-large for migratory affairs for one year before his current posting to Canada.
Dr. Chih-Kung Liu
Representative for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO)
Mr. Liu is a career diplomat who has a bachelor’s degree in dipomacy, and a master’s and PhD, both in political science.
After graduation, he began his career as an associate research fellow at National Chengchi University. He joined the foreign ministry two years later as a senior specialist in the protocol department and later in the department of North American affairs. In 1990, he became deputy director-general at TECO in Boston.
His next posting was as counsellor in South Africa. After a year, he returned to the North American affairs department and then became director of the political division in Washington. From 2001 to 2004, he was director general at TECO in Boston and served as a visiting fellow at Stanford University in 2006.
He was the representative at the mission in Mongolia before his posting to the Czech Republic. He was deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council of Taiwan from 2010 to 2012, when he came to Canada.
Mohammed Saif Helal Mohammed Alshehhi
Ambassador of United Arab Emirates
Mr. Alshehhi is a career diplomat. He has a bachelor of science in international relations and translation from Strasbourg University in France.
He began his career in 1992 when he was appointed to the ministry of foreign affairs as an attaché. In 1993, now as third secretary, he was posted to the embassy in Paris as media, economic and public affairs officer. In 1998, he was posted as a delegate to UAE’s permanent mission at the United Nations in Geneva and later to the embassy in Rome. In 2004, he returned to Paris for six years and, while there, attained the rank of counselor. He was promoted again in 2009, to minister plenipotentiary and, in 2010, was assigned to the European affairs division of the ministry before being appointed ambassador to Canada.
Mr. Alshehhi is married and has four children.
Non-heads of mission
Armenia
Aram Hakobyan
Attaché
Australia
Mathew Gayford
Counsellor
Lucas Ainslie Robson
Third secretary
Bangladesh
Dewan Mahmudul Haque
First secretary
Belgium
Julien Pierre Francois Lecomte
First secretary and deputy head of mission
Brazil
Luis Fernando Wasilewski
Second secretary
China
Tuan Jiang
Assistant military, naval and air attaché
Lupeng Gao
Second secretary
Côte D’ivoire
Lydie Ipe
Counsellor
Denmark
Christen Krogh
Counsellor and deputy head of mission
El Salvador
Vladimir Solorzano Pena
Counsellor
Egypt
Mohamed Naguib Hussein Fakhry
Minister
Mohamed Zakaria H. Elghazawy
Second secretary
France
Luc Chevaillier
First secretary
Germany
Heike Lamers
Attaché
Petra Manuela Struwe
Attaché
Hungary
Andrea Szenasi
Attaché
Lajos Olah
First secretary and deputy head of mission
Éva Simon
Attaché and consul
India
Manmohan Singh
Counsellor
Vineeta Sharma
Counsellor
Indonesia
Fientje Maritje Suebu
Minister-counsellor
Dionnisius Elvan Swasono
First secretary
Jamaica
Carol Jennifer Gillies-Thompson
Attaché
Japan
Hirohiko Shigeta
First secretary
Ryuichi Ishikawa
First secretary
Tetsuya Ito
First secretary
Junji Kamei
Second secretary
Kazakhstan
Askar Kuttykadam
Minister-counsellor
Kuwait
Hadi Alsubaie
Third secretary
Lebanon
Sami Haddad
Chargé d’affaires, A.I.
Lesotho
Pulane Christina Lechesa
Counsellor
Libya
Sulaiman A. Mohamed
Counsellor
Hesham M.R. Huwisa
Third secretary
Ali Elkilabi
Attaché
Murad Abudina
Counsellor
Madagascar
Dani Roselyne Marolasy
Attaché
Mali
Boubacar Gano
Attaché
Mexico
Antonio Curzio Gutierrez
Minister
Myanmar
Tin Aung Than
Attaché
Netherlands
Rochus Johannes Pieter Pronk
Minister and deputy head of mission
Niger
Aboubakar Amadou Sanda
Defence attaché
Nigeria
Charles Nduka Onianwa
Deputy high commissioner
Norway
Oystein Bell
First secretary
Inger Elisabeth Meyer
First secretary
Philippines
Armi Santos
Attaché
Poland
Tadeusz Wawrzyniec Glowka
Attaché
Russia
Yury Ivanov
Attaché
Saudi Arabia
Naif Abdullatif A. Alalshaikh
Third secretary
Nawaf Homoud Shanar Alshybani
Attaché
Mohammed Ibrahim A. Al Tawil
Attaché
Senegal
Saliou Lo
First secretary
South Africa
Diedre Viljoen
Minister and chargé d’affaires
Spain
Adolfo Navarro Munoz
Attaché
Juan Antonio Martin Burgos
Deputy head of mission
Switzerland
Annette Bettina Moser
First secretary
Barbara Schedler Fischer
Deputy head of mission
Thailand
Narong Boonsatheanwong
Minister-counsellor
Turkey
Gulcan Akoguz
First counsellor and chargé d’affaires
Serdar Ulker
Counsellor
United Arab Emirates
Abdulrahman Ali Almur A. Alneyadi
Attaché
United Kingdom
Jacqueline Susanna Richards
Second secretary
Michael Louis O’Sullivan
Naval and air adviser
United States of America
Matthew Lawrence Stentz
Attaché
Norman Daniel Nelson
First secretary
William Anthony Temple
Attaché
Kevin Michael Johns
Second secretary
Pedro Ramon Alicea
First secretary
Anthony Kenneth Stapleton
First secretary
Geoffrey Page Douglas
Attaché
Thomas Elmo Pajusi
Second secretary
Sarah Alice Schmidt
Second secretary
Todd David Brown
Army attaché
Vietnam
Tran Phuong Vu
First secretary
Yemen
Ahmed Ali Yahya Al-Emad
Counsellor
