Josefina Martinez Gramuglia
Ambassador of Argentina
Ambassador Martinez Gramuglia began her career at the pro bono office at the ministry of justice and human rights. In 2000, she joined the directorate for international economic negotiations and was in charge of multilateral economic affairs and bilateral investment treaties.
Between 2003 and 2004, she was deputy chief of staff at the secretariat for trade and international economic relations and then, between 2004 and 2009, she was the official in charge of disarmament, non-proliferation and international security at the United Nations mission. She returned to the secretariat for international economic relations at headquarters for the next four years and then became head of political affairs at the embassy in Washington. After that, she joined the G20 digital economy task force and, since 2018, has been general coordinator of the foreign affairs minister’s cabinet.
She speaks Spanish, English, Portuguese and Italian.
Sylvia Meier-Kajbic
Ambassador of Austria
Ambassador Meier-Kajbic joined the foreign ministry in 1992 and held numerous positions at headquarters before being sent to the Czech Republic as a press attaché. She was then posted to Italy as deputy director of the Austrian Cultural Institute in Rome, and cultural attaché.
From 2001 to 2006, she was deputy chief of protocol before being sent to Algeria as ambassador. Four years later, she became ambassador to Azerbaijan, with concurrent accreditation to Georgia for one year. She returned to the ministry as deputy director general for development co-operation and director of multilateral development co-operation before being appointed ambassador to Canada.
The ambassador speaks English, French, Italian and German.
Khalilur Rahman
High commissioner for Bangladesh
Ambassador Rahman is a career diplomat. He has held several positions at headquarters, supervising areas related to international trade, investment and frontier technology and high-tech. He also served in the Bangladesh Permanent Mission to Geneva and at the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi.
The ambassador, who is medically trained and has a PhD in public health, served at the World Health Organization in several senior positions.
When COVID-19 broke out in December 2019, the ambassador was asked to co-ordinate the government’s efforts in managing the pandemic by forging partnerships with foreign countries and international organizations. He was also in charge of repatriating Bangladeshi migrant workers affected by the pandemic. He developed programs to help them reintegrate into the domestic economy and retrain to return to work abroad.
High Commissioner Rahman is proficient in both English and French. He is married and has two children.
Raúl Eduardo Fernández Daza
Ambassador of Chile
Ambassador Fernandez Daza started his studies at the Diplomatic Academy of Chile in 1980. He has served at Chilean embassies in Romania, Switzerland, Brazil, Malaysia, Belgium, France, Mexico and the European Union. He was also consul general in Chicago.
At the foreign ministry, he oversaw the U.S. desk; he worked for the directorate for multilateral affairs, the European directorate and as head of the content unit of the 1998 Summit of the Americas
He was appointed ambassador to Haiti in 2013 and the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg in 2017. He became secretary-general for foreign policy in 2019.
The ambassador was awarded the Order of Isabel La Católica and the Order of Malta in 1990.
He is a married father of three and grandfather of three.
Jorge Londono
Ambassador of Colombia
Ambassador Londono comes to diplomacy from the world of business. He started his career at Interconexion Electrica, Colombia’s state-owned power company. He was an account executive at polling company Invamer-Gallup from 1989 to 1993, rising to the position of general manager in 1994. He stayed there until 2015, when he became general manager and CEO of Medellin Public Enterprises Group, a public utilities company.
The ambassador has served on corporate boards and has received several awards and honours in Colombia, including being named one of the top-10 Colombian leaders by MERCO in 2019.
An engineer by training, he has a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from University EAFIT in Medellin.
Michelle Cohen de Friedlander
Ambassador of the Dominican Republic
Ambassador Cohen is a lawyer and career diplomat who has accumulated vast experience over her 26 years on the job. She has focused on multilateralism and international co-operation at the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the OECD.
From 2008 to 2013, she was ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the UN in Vienna. From 2013 to 2016, she was president of the National Commission for the Defense of Competition of the Dominican Republic (the competition authority). From 2016 to 2021, she was responsible for the Canada and the U.S. file at the Dominican Republic’s foreign ministry. She was also responsible for relations with the OECD, where she serves as a delegate in special missions.
She has a law degree, a master’s in international relations and post-graduate degree in international relations. She completed her studies in the Dominican Republic, the U.S., Spain, England and France. She is a married mother of two.
Melita Gabric č
Ambassador of the European Union
Ambassador Gabric has a new set of responsibilities, but she’s remaining in Canada. The career diplomat has been ambassador of Slovenia for the last four years and in February, she changed positions and is now ambassador of the European Union.
She started her career as a diplomatic affairs adviser to the prime minister. She had completed a bachelor’s in journalism and social affairs and subsequently studied at the diplomatic academy. She later completed a master’s degree and PhD from the same university, this time in international relations.
In 2003, she was named senior foreign affairs adviser to the president of Slovenia and then spent one year as senior adviser to the president of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, after which she served as consul general of Slovenia in New York. In 2012, she joined the foreign ministry’s department of human rights. She then served as director of development co-operation and humanitarian aid before being posted to Canada.
The ambassador speaks Slovene, English, French, Italian, Serbian and Croatian. She is married.
Guisela Atalida Godinez Sazo
Ambassador of Guatemala
Ambassador Godinez Sazo takes up her position in Ottawa after having served as Guatemala’s consul-general in Montreal for two years.
From 2016 to 2018, she was ambassador to Russia and, for one year during that time, she had concurrent accreditation to Kazakhstan. From 2013 to 2016, she was ambassador to Chile and before that, she spent four years as ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, with concurrent accreditation to Barbados for two of those years and to Guyana for one of them. She was ambassador to Spain before that, and ambassador to Panama between 1996 and 2004. For a number of years before joining the foreign ministry, she worked at the National Bank of Agricultural Development.
She speaks English, Italian, French and Spanish.
Emil Druc
Ambassador of Moldova
Ambassador Druc joined the foreign ministry after spending the first 12 years of his career working as a deputy director of a theatrical union in Moldova. When he joined the foreign ministry, it was as deputy head of the Europe and North America division. He was then sent to the OSCE mission in Georgia as political officer. From 1997 to 2001, he served as counsellor at the embassy in France and then returned to headquarters as deputy director of the international organizations division.
He was minister-counsellor at the embassy in Belgium from 2002 to 2006 and then ambassador to Sweden (with accreditation to Norway and Finland) from 2010 to 2015. From 2017 to 2019, he was ambassador to France before heading up the Americas division for three years.
He speaks Romanian, French, English and Russian.
Bogdan Manoiu
Ambassador of Romania
For Ambassador Manoiu, coming to Canada represents a return. Canada was his first posting as an attaché in 1996, a year after he joined the foreign ministry.
In 2000, he returned to headquarters, was promoted to third secretary and sent to the embassy in Luxembourg. He held numerous positions at the foreign ministry between 2002 and 2007 when he was promoted to first secretary and became a foreign affairs adviser to the presidential administration. In late 2009, he became minister for European Affairs and, from 2011 to 2014, he was presidential adviser on European Affairs. He was promoted to ambassador at the same time, and returned to Canada as chargé d’affaires in 2018. He was named ambassador in March 2021.
Dennis D. Moses
High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago
A career diplomat, Ambassador Moses has his first diplomatic posting as first secretary at the mission in Belgium in 1983. After six years, he became regional representative of the Commonwealth Agriculture Bureau International for the Caribbean and Latin America.
From 1993 to 1998, he was deputy representative in Barbados of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture. From 2002 to 2013, he was the representative of the Organization of American States General Secretariat in Guyana and had the same role in Dominica from 2014 to 2015, at which point, he became a senator and minister of national security in Trinidad and Tobago. He was minister of CARICOM affairs over the same period.
The high commissioner speaks English, French and Spanish. He is married and has two children.
Non-heads of mission
Australia
Matt Tyson Linfoot
First secretary
Dominican Republic
Laura Patricia Adames Reyes
Counsellor
Angel Antonio Gonzalez Garcia
Counsellor
Egypt
Helmy Nabawy Mohamed Mohamed
First secretary
Indonesia
I Made Diangga Adika Karang
Third secretary
Italy
Salvatore Cozzolino
Attaché
Israel
Moshe Sermoneta
Minister and chargé d’affaires
Korea, Republic
Yeaji Kim
Second secretary and consul
Sri Lanka
Lashinka Dilini Dammullag
First Secretary
Vietnam
Van Hieu Nguyen
Counsellor
