New Arrivals
Anthanase Boudo
Ambassador of Burkina Faso
Ambassador Boudo began his career as a collections agent for the directorate of treasury and public finances and the directorate of co-operation, where he worked from 1996 to 2001. Between 2003 and 2004, he worked with the standing secretariat for the National Council on Population. The following year, he was head of co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation programs for the same secretariat.
In May 2010, he became a member of the National Assembly and vice-chairman of the commission on finances and budgets, after which he joined the division of financial programs monitoring within the directorate of co-operation. He then joined the national department of education and literacy before returning to the directorate of treasury and public finances.
He has a master’s in economics, with specialization in micro-economics, from the Université de Ouagadougou. He is a Knight of the Order of Burkinabé Merit.
Tania Molina Avalos
Ambassador of El Salvador
Ambassador Molina Avalos has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a master’s in political management from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. She joined the foreign ministry in 2009 and began her service as chief of cabinet during the first tenure of Hugo Martinez. In 2014, she became an adviser of the Central America Integration System (SICA) for three years. She also served as an ambassador at the special mission for Central American Integration Affairs at SICA. Ambassador Molina Avalos is a member of the Central America Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Institute.
She has represented the foreign ministry as a member of the board of directors of El Salvador’s tourism ministry and of the Conference and Convention Center. She has two sons.
Dimitrios Azemopoulos
Ambassador of Greece
Ambassador Azemopoulos has a master’s degree in law from the London School of Economics and another in international and European studies from the University of Athens. He is a PhD candidate in international and European studies.
He began his diplomatic career in 1992 as third secretary and was promoted to second secretary within the first three years. In 1995, he posted to Poland, after which he was promoted to first secretary. He soon became second and then first counsellor and worked for several years at the foreign ministry in Athens.
In 2007, he was sent to Norway with concurrent responsibilities in Iceland. Two years later, he was named consul general in Toronto. He returned to headquarters from 2014 to 2016 in the department for European countries and later as director of studies at the Diplomatic Academy and then became head of personnel. Canada is his first ambassadorial appointment.
Pétur Ásgeirsson
Ambassador of Iceland
Ambassador Ásgeirsson studied economics at the University of Stirling in Scotland after having studied law and philosophy at the University of Iceland.
He began his career in 1987 in the monetary policy division of the Central Bank of Iceland, after which he worked for TOK Computer Services and then Apple Iceland as head of the educational division. In 1993, he joined the ministry of science, education and culture, first as a political adviser, then as a specialist in the finance division and finally as head of the division for planning and development.
In 1999, he joined the foreign ministry as deputy director of administration. In 2006, he became the director, and subsequently director-general, for administration and consular affairs. In 2013, he became consul general in Nuuk, Greenland.
The ambassador is married to lawyer Jóhanna Gunnarsdóttir and has two sons.
Kimhiro Ishikane
Ambassador of Japan
Ambassador Ishikane has a bachelor’s degree in law from Tokyo University. After completing his degree in 1981, he joined the foreign ministry.
He became first secretary at the embassy in France in 1996 and was then promoted to counsellor in 1998. A year later, he returned to headquarters as director of the first Africa division. In 2001, he became secretary to the chief cabinet secretary and in 2003, director of the loan aid division.
In 2004, he became counsellor at the embassy in the U.S. and was promoted to minister one year later. He then returned to headquarters until 2012, when he became ambassador to ASEAN. In 2014, he became director-general of the international co-operation bureau and then the Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau. In 2016, he became deputy vice-minister for foreign policy before taking up his new posting in Canada.
Maurizio Carlo Alberto Gelli
Ambassador of Nicaragua
Ambassador Gelli comes to diplomacy from a varied career that spans everything from car sales to newspaper work.
He began his career as a special correspondent for the daily newspaper IL Piave, after which, in 1996, he became a client services officer at the Credit Bank of Lugano. He also worked in Brazil, in the division of agriculture and cattle at the ministry of finance.
Until 2003, he was an official representative for Daimler Chrysler in the province of Arezzo, after which he spent some time as a real estate executive. He then became the official representative for Mercedes Benz and Smart cars, also in Arezzo province in 2006. Finally, he served as official representative for Honda in the same region in 2008.
In 2009, he was sent to Nicaragua’s embassy in Uruguay as minister-counsellor. He was soon named ambassador at the same posting.
Adeyinka Olatokunbo Asekun
High Commissioner for Nigeria
High Commissioner Asekun has more than 30 years of experience in marketing and sales. Prior to his posting to Canada, he served as chairman of the board of WEMA Bank and founder and CEO of Hebron Ltd, a training and consulting firm.
He began his career at the multinational SC Johnson & Son (U.S) in 1983. He has since worked in managerial positions abroad and in Nigeria. He worked at the International Merchant Bank and was head of retail banking at Oceanic Bank. He was head of the national sales force and head of retail credit products at United Bank of Africa, and acting managing director of Oceanic Homes.
Asekun is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, where he obtained a bachelor of business administration, majoring in marketing. He also has an MBA from California State University.
Martin Alberto Vizcarra Cornejo
Ambassador of Peru
Ambassador Vizcarra Cornejo comes to the world of diplomacy from business and politics. He began his career as executive director and manager of a construction project in the Pasto Grande region of Peru from 1988 to 1991.
He then joined CyM Vizcarra SAC, an engineering and architectural firm, where he worked from 1992 to 2010.
From 2011 to 2014, he was president of the regional government of Moquegua. In 2016, he became first vice-president of Peru and was minister of transport and communications from August 2016 to May 2017.
The ambassador studied civil engineering at the National University of Engineering between 1979 and 1984. He is a promoter of dialogue to help resolve social conflicts and wrote a book on the subject for the UN Development Program.
Mohamed Imed Torjemane
Ambassador of Tunisia
After completing a bachelor’s degree in translation, Ambassador Torjemane spent the first five years of his career, between 1984 and 1989, working as a freelance translator in Paris. In 1989, he began studies at the diplomatic institute of Tunisia’s foreign ministry.
He joined the information division of the foreign ministry in 1991 and was named deputy-consul to Hamburg in 1993. He returned to headquarters in 1998 as head of the Europe division before being posted as consul in Naples in 2003.
In 2008, he returned to headquarters to become deputy director of relations with the European Union and was then sent to Hamburg again, this time as consul, between 2010 and 2015.
From 2016 until his Ottawa posting, he worked at headquarters as director of bilateral relations with African countries.
The ambassador is married and a father of two children.
Kelly Craft
Ambassador of the United States
Ambassador Craft is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. She has served on the boards of the Kentucky Arts Council, the Lexington Philharmonic, YMCA of Central Kentucky and the United Way of The Bluegrass. In addition, she has served on the board of trustees of the University of Kentucky and co-founded the Morehead State University Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics, which nurtures the academic talents of young Kentuckians.
In the private sector, she founded Kelly G. Knight LLC, a marketing and business advisory firm that provides leadership advice to businesses. In 2007, president George W. Bush appointed her an alternate delegate to the UN General Assembly.
Craft is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and holds an honorary doctorate from Morehead State University. She is married to American businessman Joe Craft.
Felix Nicholas Mfula
High Commissioner for Zambia
High Commissioner Mfula spent much of his career — 1975 to 2007 — working for the Bank of Zambia. From 1995 to 2002, he served as regional director of the Bank of Zambia for four provinces. In 2002, he became deputy governor of the Bank of Zambia, a position he held for five years.
When he left the bank, he became chief operating officer and owner of Prifex Enterprises Ltd. and Prifex Hotels Ltd., a professional cleaning service and landscaping company and a 78-room hotel.
Politically, he has served as the northern province’s chairman for the Patriotic Front, Zambia’s ruling party, since 2014.
He studied economics in Zambia, banking in Washington and Zambia and “financial engineering” in New York. He has a master’s of business administration from Delft University in the Netherlands.
Non-heads of mission
Algeria
Abdenacer Kateb
Counsellor
Benin
Patricia Akouavi Quenum
Attaché
Brazil
Daniel Santos Nogueira Arneiro
Attaché
Fabio Benvenutti Castro
Military attaché
Burkina Faso
Yacouba Damoue
Counsellor
Marcelline Damoue Zombra
Attaché
Djibouti
Ismail Mohamed Djama
Counsellor
Ethiopia
Legesse Geremew Haile
Deputy head of mission
Ghana
Abubakari Abudu Yidana
Counsellor
Greece
Sophia Tsamicha
Minister
Iraq
Mahdi Abdullah Mahal
First secretary
Kauther Safaa Ahmed Al-Nadawi
Third secretary
Italy
Spartaco Caldararo
Counsellor
Fabrizio Martinelli
Attaché
Libya
Tarek M.A. Alnajeh
Counsellor
Fateh .M.A. Benelhaj
Counsellor
Mexico
Manuel Julio Dominguez Arana
Counsellor
Morocco
M Hammed Derouich
Minister
New Zealand
Marta Mager
Counsellor
Nigeria
Muhammed Ismaila
Counsellor
Romania
Dumitru-Nicanor Teculescu
Minister
Russia
Evgeny Khudynin
Third secretary
Alexander Karmanov
Counsellor
Alexey Kuchuk
Assistant military attaché
Saudi Arabia
Hassan Abdullah Hassan Al Shahrani
Attaché
Abdulmajeed Mohammed A. Al Humrah
Attaché
Sudan
Tamim Ali Tamim Fartak
First secretary
United Kingdom
Andrew Lamb Silander
Second secretary
United States of America
Leonard Martin Johnston
Assistant attaché
Renee Ann Garcia
Second secretary
Latifa Bousaidi Taylor
Attaché
