Brief Profile of the new Ambassador – Designate to Viet Nam, Prof. A. Saj U. Mendis

A. Saj U. Mendis is a career Foreign Service Officer of Grade I of the Sri Lankan Foreign Service. His first assignment at the Foreign Office of Colombo was Assistant Director of Economic Affairs and then he was posted to Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Geneva. After Prof. Mendis returned to Sri Lanka, he was the Director of the Publicity (Public Communication) Division of the Foreign Office. Then he served for two years in the Ministry. Prof. Mendis was posted to High Commission of Sri Lanka in New Delhi. After the completion of his posting in New Delhi, Prof. Mendis was the Director of Economic Affairs at the Foreign Office. He was posted to the Mission of Sri Lanka in Singapore as the Deputy Chief of Mission (Deputy High Commissioner). On request by the Government, Prof. Mendis returned to Colombo and was seconded to the office of the Director General in charge of Investment and Tourism of the then Ministry of Economic Development. He was posted to Embassy of Sri Lanka in Tokyo as the Deputy Ambassador/Acting Ambassador and then to the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Bahrian as the Ambassador. Then, Prof. Mendis was also posted as the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Republic of Korea. Before assuming the Office of Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Viet Nam, Prof. Mendis was the Additional Secretary of Economic Affairs, Public Diplomacy and Ocean Affairs at the Foreign Office in Colombo.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Prof. Mendis was an Associate Vice President on Institution Investments at the premier Investment Bank, Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York and San Francisco for an extended length of time. Prof. Mendis is a Visiting Lecturer/ Faculty/ Professor/ Examiner of PhD and MBA/MA programs in over 35 universities of repute in many parts of the world. Prof. Mendis had most of his education in the US earning the first and post-graduate degrees and the Doctorate on International Economics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, popularly known as IIT, in Delhi. He is also a Senior (Executive) Fellow at Harvard.