Masud Bin Momen made new foreign secretary

The government on Tuesday appointed Masud Bin Momen as the 26th foreign secretary of the country.

The appointment was confirmed by a notification issued by the director general (administration) of the Foreign Ministry.

Career diplomat Masud succeeded Shahidul Haque, the country’s longest-serving foreign secretary who retired on Monday.

Prior to this appointment, Masud served for a brief period as the secretary (Asia and Pacific) at the Foreign Ministry.

Before that, he had served as the ambassador and the permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations since November 3, 2015.

Belonging to foreign service cadre of the 1985 BCS batch, Masud served in stations like New York, Islamabad, New Delhi and Kathmandu in various capacities throughout his career.

He was also the country’s ambassador in Italy and Japan.

Masud obtained his honours and master’s degrees in economics from Dhaka University. He also has a master’s degree in international relations from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Tufts University, at Boston, US.

From 1998 to 2001, he was the director-in-charge of the Foreign Ministry's United Nations Wing and Foreign Secretary's Office in Dhaka.

He served as the director of Poverty Alleviation at Saarc Secretariat in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 2001 to 2004.

He was the deputy commissioner at the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi, India, from 2004 to 2006.

The next two years, he was the director general at Foreign Ministry, responsible for matters related to South Asia, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation.

Masud also served as the permanent representative to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.