Latha Reddy
Former Deputy National Security Adviser of India; Distinguished Fellow, EastWest Institute

Latha Reddy is the former Deputy National Security Adviser of India. In addition to assisting National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon, Reddy was responsible for cybersecurity and other critical internal and external security issues.

Reddy joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1975 and has served on diplomatic assignments in Lisbon, Washington DC, Kathmandu, Brasilia, and as Consul General in Durban and Deputy Chief of Mission in Vienna.

She has also served at the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce in New Delhi in various capacities. She has served as the Deputy Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and as the Head of the Administration Division in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Reddy was Ambassador of India to Portugal from 2004 to 2006 and Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of Thailand from 2007-2009. She served as Secretary (East) in Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi from January 2010 to March 2011 and supervised India’s foreign policy and bilateral relations with South East Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, the Pacific, West Asia (including the Gulf), & North Africa. She has also had extensive experience in multilateral diplomacy (IAEA, UNIDO, COPUOS, ESCAP etc.) and in regional diplomacy (ASEAN, EAS, ARF, ASEM, BIMSTEC, BRICS, GCC etc) and has attended and organized several high-level summit meetings.

She served as the Deputy National Security Advisor and the Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat, from March 2011 to March 2013. During this assignment she worked on a wide variety of strategic and security issues including Internal Security and External Security. In addition, she worked intensively on crucial technology security issues, particularly on cybersecurity.

Over her career in the Government of India for 38 years (1975-2013), Ms Reddy had the opportunity to gain expertise not only in the areas given above, i.e. political relations, and strategic and security matters, but also in areas such as administration of the Foreign Service, the Foreign Ministry as well as the National Security Council Secretariat, running several diplomatic missions, and in other areas such as economic and trade promotion and policy, cultural and public diplomacy, consular matters, and dealing with diaspora issues.

Latha Reddy was born in Madras, India on April 5, 1951. She was educated at Church Park Convent, Madras and did her graduate studies at Women’s Christian College, Madras where she qualified for a BA (English Literature) in 1971. She then took a Masters degree in English Literature from Central College, Bangalore University in 1973.