Biographical Note

New Permanent Representative of Singapore Presents Credentials

(Based on information received from the Protocol and Liaison Service.)

Vanu Gopala Menon, the new Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations, presented his credentials to Secretary-General Kofi Annan today.

Since December 2001, Mr. Menon had been serving as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, while concurrently accredited as his country’s Ambassador to Turkey.

Mr. Menon joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 1985.  He served as First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Singapore in New York from March 1988 to April 1991, and as Counsellor and later Minister-Counsellor in the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from November 1994 to November 1997.

On his return to Ministry headquarters, he was appointed Senior Deputy Director at the Policy, Planning and Analysis Directorate in December 1997, and became its Director a year later.

Mr. Menon graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1985, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.  In 1994, he obtained a Master of Science in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, United Kingdom, on a Raffles Scholarship.

Born on 8 September 1960, Mr. Menon is married and has a son.

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