Tasneem Akhtar always suffered from wanderlust and dreamt of being a diplomat. In 2009 she joined the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – a few years after joining the UK Civil Service through its fast-track graduate programme.
She’s spent the last 12 years living and working in Egypt, Russia, Jordan, Iraq and in the US – covering a diverse range of policy, public affairs, programme and crisis management roles. Human rights policy has been a strong career anchor, and she’s worked on several high-profile political crises e.g. Syria, the Arab Spring, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Ukraine/Crimea and Yemen. In her current role at the UK Mission to the UN, she creates partnerships between the British Government, the UN and a range of global NGOs to strengthen peace, security, development and political outcomes.
She has a Bachelor’s in Politics and French, and a Master’s in International Relations from the University of Reading, UK.
In her spare time, she volunteers with the Trust and Safety Professional Association and the women’s volunteer organisation: the New York Junior League. She also dabbles in learning SQL and setting herself challenges such as sticking to a couch to 10k running programme. Originally from the UK, she now lives in New York.
