BIOGRAPHY Shirin Tahir-Kheli Senior Adviser, Office of the Secretary Term of Appointment: 04/06/2006 to present

Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as her Senior Adviser for women’s empowerment. In this capacity, she highlights the importance of Women’s Empowerment as an element of U.S. foreign policy and designs programs to implement that goal. As part of her portfolio, she spearheads the efforts of the Secretary’s Women Leaders’ Working Group comprised of nearly forty foreign ministers and heads of state. The Women Leaders’ Working Group is focused on women’s empowerment through four specific areas: political participation; economic empowerment; education; and issues relating to justice for women. In her multifaceted outreach efforts on behalf of the Secretary of State, she is especially focused on engaging women of the Muslim world.

Ambassador Tahir-Kheli most recently served as the Secretary’s Senior Adviser on United Nations reform. She engaged the UN Secretary General and Secretariat as well as other UN member states on UN reform efforts. From 2003 to 2005 Ambassador Tahir-Kheli was the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations at the National Security Council. Prior to that she was Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University Foreign Policy Institute, School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, where she was the founding Director of the South Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Institute. From 1993 to 1995 she was a senior fellow at the Center of International Studies at Princeton University. Ambassador Tahir-Kheli was appointed Alternate United States Representative to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs serving from 1990 to 1993. Ambassador Tahir-Kheli also served as Director of Political Military Affairs and then as Director of Near East and South Asian Affairs from 1984 to 1989 with the National Security Council staff. From 1982 to 1984, Tahir-Kheli was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State.