Mr. Nikhil Seth

Co-Chair of the GSF transitional High-Level Council

United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Executive Director, UNITAR

Mr. Nikhil Seth joined UNITAR as its Executive Director on Oct 1, 2015. During his term UNITAR has grown significantly in the number of beneficiaries of its services and its work has been aligned to the pillars of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. Before assuming the post of the UNITAR Executive Director, Nikhil Seth was the Director of the Division for Sustainable Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. In this role he served as head of the Rio+20 secretariat and of the secretariat for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States, spearheading the preparations for these conferences in Rio, Brazil, and Apia, Samoa. He was also closely engaged in coordinating and advancing their follow-up. In the United Nations Mr. Seth served as the Director for ECOSOC, Secretary of the Economic and Financial Committee (2nd Committee), Secretary of ECOSOC and with the USG of DESA. He was closely involved with many of the Summits and Conferences of the 1990’s – as a delegate from India and as part of the support secretariat.