UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Mali
CANDIDATE: Rachna Sachdeva Korhonen
Rachna Korhonen is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Counselor. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the combined Executive Offices of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. Previously, Ms. Korhonen was the Consul General and Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate, Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She also led the Management Section of the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka and, in Washington, served as the Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Management. Ms. Korhonen’s demonstrated leadership ability, her considerable excellence both in diplomacy and the private sector, and her record of achievement, as documented in over a dozen performance awards, makes her a well-qualified candidate to serve as Ambassador to the Republic of Mali.
Among her other assignments, Ms. Korhonen was the Supervisory General Services Officer and Senior Human Resources Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the Political Chief of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kirkuk, Iraq. She also had assignments at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait and at the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai, India. Before joining the State Department, Ms. Korhonen was, among other positions, the Sales Director for Infosys Corporation and prior to that the Director of U.S. Sales for Sonera Zed Corporation.
Ms. Korhonen earned her B.S. from Empire State College. She speaks Hindi, French, Finnish and Arabic and, in addition to the performance awards mentioned above, she is also the recipient of the Expeditionary Service Award from the State Department.