CEG C-Level Connect Series #34 – Mr. Ashwin Bhaskaran, IFS, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

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Mr. Ashwin Bhaskaran, IFS, CEG 2007 EEE, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

Ashwin Bhaskaran is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) Officer from the Batch of 2013. He did his Bachelors in Electrical & Electronics from College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai graduating with distinction at the University level. He went on to do his Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, majoring in Finance and Strategy.

During his PGDM, he did his summer internship at ITC Limited, one of the finest FMCG companies in India, in its Foods Division on making product development strategies, basis qualitative analytic methods. He secured the Pre-Placement Offer (PPO) from ITC and was amongst less than 2% of the entire PGP Batch in IIMK securing a PPO. He then started his career with ITC, initially with Sales and Marketing at ITC branch sales office in Patna handling the regions of Bihar and Jharkhand (South Bihar). This was followed by his next stint of Education & Stationery Business SBU of ITC, wherein he served for more than three years as Brand Manager handling Classmate brand, a note book cum stationery brand which during this period was able to revolutionise the notebook category itself, from a commoditised to a branded industry!

While still serving with ITC, he cracked UPSC and secured a position in coveted Indian Foreign Service (IFS), as per his choice and directly moved from ITC into IFS in the year 2013. After one year of induction/ orientation into civil services, he took on the Sri Lanka desk in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Govt of India. He went for his first foreign posting to Indian Mission in Spain as Third Secretary in 2015, followed by Indian Mission in Seychelles as Second Secretary/First Secretary/Acting High Commissioner during the period 2017-2021. During his stint in Spain, Ashwin also underwent a Post Masters Diploma in International Relations & Diplomacy at Escuela Diplomatica de Espana (Spanish Diplomatic School) and was the first Indian Diplomat to complete this course with the highest distinction.

Currently he is posted in MEA HQ in New Delhi handling the Nepal desk in the Ministry for the last two years.

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Host – Mr. Vish Viswanathan, CEG 1985 Mech, CEO, Anikode Management Consultants

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Technical Support – Mr. Partha Sarathy, CEG IT, 2021

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