Ambassador (ret.) Atul Keshap

Ambassador (ret.) Atul Keshap

• President, U.S.-India Business Council, President, U.S.-Bangladesh Business Council, & Senior Vice President, South Asia, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Ambassador (ret.) Atul Keshap serves at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as President of the United States India Business Council, whose members are dedicated to the growth of commercial ties between the world's two largest democracies. In addition to this role at USIBC, Ambassador Keshap also serves as Senior Vice President for South Asia and as President of the U.S.-Bangladesh Business Council.

Ambassador Keshap is a retired career senior Foreign Service Officer who recently served as Charge d'Affaires at the United States Embassy in New Delhi, leading the U.S. Mission's engagement with the government and people of India. Prior to that, he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, with policy responsibility for U.S. relations toward eleven countries of Southeast Asia and helped lead the bureau's domestic and overseas response to the covid-19 pandemic.

Across his 28-year career as an American diplomat, Ambassador Keshap served at postings in India, Morocco, and Guinea, and as United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives. He has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, as U.S. Senior Official for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, and as an Office Director in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

During his career, Ambassador Keshap helped advance U.S. relations with India, including work to finalize an agreement on civilian nuclear energy cooperation, U.S. participation in a trilateral consultation with India and Japan, and the U.S.-India-Japan-Australia Quadrilateral coordination.

Ambassador Keshap has negotiated or advanced bilateral and multilateral initiatives at senior levels with counterparts from the European Union, United Nations, ASEAN, APEC, and governments across the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and North and South America.

Ambassador Keshap also served at the Department of Defense as the National Defense University’s Vice Chancellor for the College of International Security Affairs. Earlier in his career, he served as Director for North Africa and Middle East regional affairs on the National Security Council staff in the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

In 2018, Ambassador Keshap received one of the State Department’s highest honors, the Distinguished Honor Award, in recognition of his leadership in advancing U.S. interests in the Indian Ocean region. He is also the recipient of a 2019 Presidential Meritorious Rank Award, as well as numerous individual State Department Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, and seven senior executive performance pay awards. His wife, Karen Young Keshap, is a United States Foreign Service Officer. They have three daughters and a son.