Diplomat-in-Residence and an Associate Member of the ESEI.
Louise Blais served as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations from 2017 to 2021 and was responsible for the 2030 Agenda and the campaign for the Security Council. She also served on the UNICEF Executive Board with a $7 billion budget where she was elected Vice‑Chair in 2019. She was appointed co-facilitator by the President of the UN General Assembly for the resolution of the 31st Special Session on COVID‑19.
She began her career as an Art Theft Analyst at Interpol. She then served as Program Manager for the National Archives Development Program from 1992 to 1996 before joining the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1992.
Abroad, she was first posted to the Washington Embassy, then to Tokyo and Paris. During her 5-year mandate in France, she and the team at the Embassy were responsible for preparing the Canadian participation at the G8 Summit in Deauville and the G20 in Cannes.
In Ottawa, she held the positions of Director of Public Diplomacy and Executive Director of Human Resources Management with over 2,000 rotational employees around the world.
In 2014, she was appointed Consul General in Atlanta covering North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi – a region representing over $50 billion in commercial trade with Canada. She temporarily returned to that position in 2021 to help Canada face the protectionist surge in the United States.
Louise Blais has served on several boards including the Helen Hayes Awards in Washington, the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, and the Tokyo International Film Festival as well as the Board of Trustees of the Atlanta Ballet. She is an alumna of the Trans-Atlantic and World Young Leaders Forum (2001, 2002 and 2005) of the BWM Herbert Quandt Foundation, where she remains a member of the Responsible Leaders Network, a global network of leaders.
She holds the Robson Lecturer Emeritus designation at Emory University. She is also a guest lecturer at the École d’hiver en Relation internationale at Université Laval.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Business Council of Alabama.
Among her personal commitments, Louise Blais is dedicated to the advancement of women in business and diplomacy. She launched the first North American summit (Canada, United States, Mexico) of women entrepreneurs. She is currently writing a book on women in leadership.
Louise Blais received a B.A. from McGill University. She is married and has two adult sons.