Naela Chohan is a career diplomat and an artist. As a seasoned and veteran diplomat, ambassador Chohan has assumed a leadership position in eight different Pakistani diplomatic missions on five different continents. Along with only a handful of other diplomats, Naela Chohan represents the first and senior-most cohort of women to rise to the highest echelon of Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Canada’s weekly foreign policy Embassy Magazine in January, 2008 described her by saying that “though slight in stature and soft in speech, Naela Chohan accounts for 50 per cent of the Pakistani foreign service’s most potent power couple.”

Having started her diplomatic career on the China Desk at Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she has been a proponent of a strong Pakistan-China Alliance premised on multifaceted cooperation. Naela Chohan is also committed to the prohibition of global Chemical Weapons, being the first civilian and woman to head the National Authority on the Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical weapons in Pakistan. She is responsible for having conceived or restored several Pakistani landmarks including the Plaza de Pakistan in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was the first female foreign diplomat to be formally received by the Iranian Government after the 1979 Revolution. Naela Chohan was unanimously elected Chairperson for three consecutive years of Asia Pacific Centre (APDC), Kuala Lumpur.

Naela Chohan has served as High Commissioner of Pakistan to Australia, where she laid emphasis on bolstering bilateral ties, therein prioritizing the enhancement of security, agricultural, educational and economic relations. She has previously served as Pakistan’s Additional Foreign Secretary for the Middle East and Africa, prior to which she was the Ambassador of Pakistan to Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Ecuador, where she has been a vocal proponent of stronger ties between Pakistan and Latin America. She is an alumnus of Quaid-e-Azam University and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Beyond her diplomatic career, Ambassador Naela Chohan is a strong advocate of Women’s Rights through the medium of visual arts, and exhibitions of her art have taken place on five Continents. She has continued to create awareness about various social and humanitarian issues internationally including at the UN. Her most notable work is “Encaged” at her solo painting exhibition entitled Souffrance, which is kept on permanent display at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris since 2002. According to UNESCO, “Cest une voix visuelle. Forte par la coluer et la compositition des image” (She is a visual voice. Strong in colours and in composition of images). Ambassador Chohan received her formal training in visual arts from Malaysian Institute of Arts (MIA), l’ecole Nationale Superior des Beaux Arts, l’ecole de Louvre. She has a Diploma in Trompe l’oiel from Ateliers du Carrousel, Palais de Louvre.

She retired from her Diplomatic Service in Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs on 5^th May 2018, and is since is pursuing her “Give Back” to the youth of Pakistan by opting teaching at her alma mater and other strategic organisations and institutions, in addition to actively taking up her artistic talent.

Participant in: August 2019 Fellowship: The Arts as a Tool for Peacebuilding