Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues

Geeta Rao Gupta is a co-founder of The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice. She is also a co-founder of the Arch Collaborative, a strategic initiative to build bridges between multiple stakeholders to resist the global anti-rights movement and rebuild the global architecture needed to advance gender equality and women’s rights. From 2023 to early 2025, she was Ambassador-at-Large for the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State . She previously served as Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation where she founded and directed the 3D Program for Girls and Women and Senior Advisor to Co-impact, a global collaborative philanthropy for systems change. From 2012 to 2016, Ambassador Rao Gupta was Deputy Executive Director, Programmes at UNICEF and prior to that Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Earlier, Rao Gupta served as President of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) for more than a decade. Ambassador Rao Gupta has also served on numerous boards including as Chair of the Global Advisory Board of Women Lift Health, an initiative to promote women’s leadership in global health and as a member of WHO’s Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for Health Emergencies, the Board of UBS Optimus Foundation and the Advisory Board of Merck for Mothers. She also served as a Commissioner for the Lancet-SIGHT Commission on Health, Gender Equality and Peace. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including InterAction’s Julia Taft Award for Outstanding Leadership, Harvard University’s Anne Roe Award and Washington Business Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business” Award. Ambassador Rao Gupta holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Bangalore University and an M.Phil. and M.A. from the University of Delhi in India.