Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya joined the elite Indian Foreign Service in 1980 and served in Indian Embassies in Mexico, France, Cuba, the Permanent Mission of India, New York, and Ministry of External Affairs, India in various capacities; as well as in the Ministries of Culture and Defence of India; the United Nations, New York, as a Consultant on Social Development; and as a Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC. He is also an alumnus of the National Defence College of India, (NDC), the highest defence training institute for the Armed Forces of India. His career highlights include the re-opening of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in November 2001 after the ouster of the Taliban, and 3-year tenures as India’s Ambassador to Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar, before retiring from service in May 2016. He has since been associated with several think tanks, notably the Centre for Policy Research, where he is a Senior Visiting Fellow, and Indian industry bodies such as the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) where he heads a Task Force on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.