New Arrivals – Winter | Spring 2022

Scott Ryan
High Commissioner for Australia
Scott Ryan comes to diplomacy from politics. He was first elected to the Senate in the 2007 federal election and was re-elected in 2013 and 2016. He served as a parliamentary secretary to the minister for education, and then as parliamentary secretary to the minister for education and training. He also served as minister for vocational education and skills following a cabinet re-arrangement. He was elected president of the Senate in 2017 and resigned his ministerial posts to take up the position.
Prior to his involvement in politics, he worked as a speechwriter in the office of the Victorian opposition leader. He also worked in corporate affairs for GlaxosmithKline and was a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs between 2007 and 2008. He is married and they have two sons.

Ronen Hoffman
Ambassador of Israel
Ambassador Hoffman is an academic and former member of the Knesset. For 20 years, he taught at the Reichman University in Herzliya on topics ranging from diplomacy and foreign policy to conflict management.
From 2013 to 2015, he served as a member of the defence and foreign affairs committee, chairman of the subcommittee on foreign policy and public diplomacy and chairman of the Israel-Canada Interparliamentary Friendship Association.
From 2001 to 2002, he advised the minister of defence on international and political affairs. He was a member of the lsraeli delegation for peace negotiations with Syria in 2000 and actively participated in the negotiations, co-ordinated pre-negotiation staff work and formulated policy papers and reports on the peace talks.
Ambassador Hoffman has three children and his partner is Michal Arad.

Khalid bin Rashid S.H. Al Mansouri
Ambassador-designate of Qatar
Ambassador Al Mansouri joined the foreign ministry in 1987 and joined the consular department later that year. He moved over to the department responsible for international organizations and conferences between 1991 and 1993 before becoming second secretary at the embassy in Washington. He held that position from 1993 to 1998, at which point he returned to the ministry’s information and research department until 2002.
Al Mansouri was director of European and American Affairs from 2002 to 2005 and was named ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2005 to 2014. He returned to headquarters as director of the department of European affairs before being named ambassador to France between 2016 and 2018. In 2019, he was named an adviser to the minister of foreign affairs for international development.
He was awarded the Royal Victorian Knight Order by Queen Elizabeth II and the National Order of Merit by the president of France.

Alfredo Martínez Serrano
Ambassador of Spain
Ambassador Martínez Serrano has a law degree and a master’s in European Union law from the European Institute of the Free University of Brussels
A career diplomat, he has served as chief adviser to the cabinet of the foreign minister and has completed postings as deputy chief of mission in Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, El Salvador and Egypt. Between 2007 and 2012, he was deputy chief of protocol at the royal household of Spain, responsible for the international agenda and public activities of the crown prince and princess, after which he became chief of protocol.
Since 2016, he has been managing the King of Spain’s agenda and engaging in intense reform of the royal household.
The ambassador is married and has three children.

Harsha Kumara Navaratne Weraduwa
High Commissioner for Sri Lanka
High Commissioner Weraduwa has worked with non-profit organizations over his long career. From 1978 to 1991, he worked for the Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, where he trained stakeholders and co-ordinated work with the organization’s partners, such as Oxfam, UNICEF and Care.
Starting in 1991, he spent two years as an adviser to the Janasaviya National Poverty Alleviation Program and then founded the Sevalanka Foundation, a national organization to support community-based groups.
He was an executive member of the advisory board for the United Nations Peace University and served five years as an executive member of the Peace Prize Committee for the Niwano Peace Foundation in Japan. From 2020 to 2021, he was the commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.
The high commissioner is married.

David L. Cohen
Ambassador of the United States
Before his appointment as ambassador to Canada, Ambassador Cohen served as senior adviser to the CEO at Comcast Corporation. He was previously senior executive vice-president at Comcast, where his portfolio included corporate communications, legal affairs, government and regulatory affairs, public affairs, corporate administration, corporate real estate and security and community impact. He also served as the company’s first chief diversity officer.
Before joining Comcast in 2002, he was a partner and chairman at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, one of the 100 largest law firms in the country.  From January 1992 to April 1997, Cohen served as chief of staff to the mayor of Philadelphia.
He has served on many non-profit boards. A native of New York, he has a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

 

Non-heads of mission

Australia
Ellie Mae Aurisch
Assistant defence adviser

Dylan James Hubbard
First secretary

Bolivia
Andrea Valentina Pena Castellon
First secretary

Brazil
Waleska Aragao Lelis
Attaché and vice-consul

Burkina Faso
Taba Doye
Second counsellor

Chile
Claudia Andrea Aravena Neira
First secretary

China
Cong Shen
First secretary

Jun Zhang
First secretary

Yang Wang
Second secretary

Xiaolong Chen
Third secretary

Li Jiang
Attaché

Yingzi Jia
Second secretary

Yan Wang
Minister-Counsellor

Chunqing Zhang
Attaché

Yang Zhou
Attaché

Côte d’Ivoire
Mangny Justine Tano Nee Coffi
Counsellor

Mariatou Doussou Iahya Toure Nee Coulibaly
Attaché

Cuba
Jorge Luis Machado Labanino
Attaché

Isaylin Cabanas Vera
Counsellor

Egypt
Faten Abdelmeguid Hassan Elsayed
Attaché

Amr Fawzy Abdelateef Elsharnouby
Assistant defence, military, naval and air attaché

Germany
Sebastian Klaer
First secretary

Jurgen Gerhard Kurzhals
Second secretary

Astrid Maria Jakobs De Padua
Minister-counsellor

Klaus Ruediger Schindel
Counsellor

Ghana
Maxwell Appiah-Kubi
Defence Attaché

Guyana
Lucresha Alecia Bryan-French
First secretary

Cindy Maria Sauers
Counsellor and acting high commissioner

India
Sone Lal Mallik
Second secretary

Bikram Pal Singh Bhatty
First secretary

Iraq
Ahmed Hussein Kareem Kareem
First secretary

Jamaica
Dale Elliott Stanley Jones
Counsellor

Japan
Tokuro Furuya
Minister

Hiromi Masaki
Attaché

Takuma Taniguchi
Attaché

Akiko Satoh
First secretary

Shingo Amano
Second Secretary

Korea, Republic
Jae Kyung Park
Minister

Kosovo
Korab Mushkolaj
Counsellor

Kuwait
Naser A. Sh. A. B. Aladwani
Attaché

Libya
Abdalla S. A. Bgar
Minister-counsellor

Guoma A. G. Alswidi
Assistant attaché

Rashed A. M. Sharkasi
Counsellor

Mexico
Jose Maria Martinez Gonzalez
Attaché

New Zealand
Kirsty Pelenur
First secretary

Nigeria
Bridget Oluremi Yinka-Adewale
Attaché

Esther Odera Omene
First secretary

David Toyin Apinran
Second secretary

Paraguay
Pablo Esteban Ramon Bedoya Gonzalez
Minister and chargé d’affaires

Philippines
Leo Marco Vidal
Third secretary and vice-consul

Romania
Viorica Cate
Counsellor

Russia
Maria Antonova
Second secretary

Artem Kalabukhov
First secretary

Igor Prokopiev
First secretary

Rwanda
Eustache Rutabuzwa
Defence attaché

Saudi Arabia
Mohammed Abdullah A. Aljebrin
Attaché

Sultan Ali S. Alaql
Attaché

Faisal Shudayyid D. Alotaibi
Attaché

Yasser Hamed A. Sindi
First secretary

Riyad Abdallah M. Naseef
First secretary

Ahmed Mohammed A. Banunnah
Attaché

Faisal Abdulrahman M. Alotaibi
Attaché

Senegal
Papa Alioune Badara Biteye
First counsellor

Awa Cheikh Seck
Second secretary

Moustapha Sow
Minister-counsellor

Spain
Maria Del Pilar Alvarez Julvez
Attaché

Sri Lanka
Anzul Banu Jhan
Deputy high commissioner

Tanzania
Charles Tumaini Faini
Minister-Counsellor

Thailand
Pachara Lochindaratana Janes
Counsellor

Turkey
Naim Cengiz
Counsellor

United Kingdom
Stephen Howard Bridges
Second secretary

Amberley Rose Coomber
Third secretary

Ian Attwood
First secretary

United States of America
Andrew William Klopfer
Assistant attaché

Erik Calmer Thor Nelson
Attaché

Vietnam
Minh Dao Nguyen
First secretary