Mridul Kumar, Indian Foreign Service (1992)
Curriculum Vitae
A career diplomat belonging to 1992-batch of Indian Foreign Service, Mridul Kumar is currently serving as Ambassador of India to Switzerland since 19 June 2023. Prior to this, he served as Additional Secretary in charge of European affairs in the Ministry of External Affairs.
He previously served as India’s High Commissioner to Malaysia from February 2018 to July 2021 and Consul General in Cape Town, South Africa from June 2009 to June 2012.
He has varied experience of diplomatic assignments, having worked in Indian Missions in Egypt (1994-1996), Morocco (1996-1999) and the UK (2002-2005). At Headquarters, he worked in the UN and Europe West Divisions and served as the Deputy Chief of Protocol and then as the Chef de cabinet in the office of MOS for External Affairs and Information & Broadcasting.
Kumar was Joint Secretary in the Ministry in charge of Coordination, Parliament and VIP Division (November 2012-May 2013) and then headed the Gulf & Hajj Division (May 2013- February 2018). He was the coordinator for the annual Hajj pilgrimage in 2014, 2015 and 2016. He also coordinated the evacuation of Indian nationals from Iraq (2014) and Yemen (2015) during war times. He further handled two major international conferences as the Chief Coordinator - the 16th World Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok (28 June- 2 July 2015) and the 10th World Hindi Conference, Bhopal (10-12 September 2015).
He did his schooling from Delhi and subsequently graduated from Delhi College of Engineering in 1990 in Electronics and Communications. He attended a Management programme from IIM, Bangalore and another course on Leadership and Management from Judge Business School, Cambridge University, the UK(2013). He received a diploma in Foreign Service Program (2000-2001) from Balliol College, Oxford University.
Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he briefly worked as probationary officer in the Indian Railways (Signals and Telecommunication) in 1992.
He speaks Hindi, English and Arabic. His hobbies include trekking (led a group of pilgrims to Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra in 2009), cricket, painting, cookery and music. He is married to late Mrs. Sumita Goyal and they have two daughters (25 and 23 years old).
