Currently serving as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women Issues and Gender Equality, Anne Meskanen obtained an M.A in Political Science from the University of Helsinki and joined the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1996. At that time, she published Women at the European Forums, a book on women facing challenges within the European Union. Since then, she has held diplomatic service posts in the Finnish Embassies of Romania, Syria and Kosovo, as well as with the Finnish Mission to the United Nations in New York. From 2015 to 2017 she served as Ambassador to Afghanistan.