In 2022, Diana Janse was appointed State Secretary to Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade. Prior to this, from 2021-2022, Janse was a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum (Frivärld), and from 2019-2021, served as Sweden’s Ambassador to Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, based in Bamako. Ms Janse has also served as Swedish ambassador to Georgia and Armenia, based in Tbilisi, followed by a post as ambassador to Lebanon and Chargé d’Affairs to Syria.
Ms Janse joined the Swedish Foreign Service in 1999. In the first decade of her career, she has served in Belgrade, Moscow, New York, Kabul, at the EU Council Secretariat in Brussels and as then Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s special assistant and adviser.
Before joining the MFA, Ambassador Janse worked in the Ministry of Defence and in the Swedish Military Intelligence. She also spent one year as an interpreter for the UN forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994.
Ms Janse holds two degrees from Uppsala University, a Masters in Political Science and a Bachelors in Russian Language and Literature.
Photo credits: UD/Taimi Köster