Ambassador Pankaj Sharma, a member of the Indian Foreign Service since 1991, took up the position of Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to the Conference on Disarmament on 12 November, 2018. Prior to his current assignment, he was serving as the Joint Secretary and Head of the Disarmament and International Security Affairs (D&ISA;) Division at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) of India from November 2016 till October 2018, where his responsibilities included all issues of relevance to disarmament, nonproliferation & arms control, civil nuclear cooperation, strategic trade, space cooperation, maritime security, export controls and multilateral export control regimes etc.

Ambassador Sharma was on deputation to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), The Hague from March 2012 to November 2016. He has served abroad in various positions in a number of countries including the Russian Federation, Ukraine, USA, Israel and the Netherlands. While at the Embassy of India in The Hague, he also served as the Alternate Permanent Representative of India to the OPCW. He has also served in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi in various Divisions, including the Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division, UN Political Division, East Europe Division and the Technical Cooperation and Economic Relations Division.

Ambassador Sharma holds a Ph.D. in Management/Information Technology and a Master of Technology in Management and Systems from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He was a Visiting Faculty Member at the Department of Management Information Systems at the Krannert School of Management, Purdue University, USA from 2001-2002. He has published in international refereed journals.

Ambassador Sharma has represented India in several international conferences and seminars.