Lakshmi Puri was the youngest-ever entrant into the Indian Foreign Service. After representing India abroad in key bilateral and multilateral diplomatic assignments for 28 years, including as Ambassador to Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina, she served at the United Nations for 15 years in various leadership capacities: as Director of the flagship International Trade Division of UNCTAD, later as the first Indian woman to be an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and as the founding Deputy Executive Director of UN Women. In other words, she contributed in such roles to the UN’s major initiatives on peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, human rights, and humanitarian action.
A widely recognised global leader, she has been honoured with numerous awards including the Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Human Rights, the Novus Award for Championing the Sustainable Development Goals, the Millennium Campus Award (2015), and the Global Generation Award as an Inspiration for Youth.
She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Indian Association of International Studies (IAIS) and a visiting professor at the South Asian University, New Delhi.
Lakshmi Puri is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel Swallowing the Sun, a national bestseller that has already received five literary awards, with rights sold for several Indian languages, and has now been signed up for a premier multi-part drama series destined for exclusive streaming distribution.