Chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Shashi Tharoor was the official candidate of India for the succession to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006, and came a close second out of seven contenders in the race. 

His UN career began in 1978, when he joined the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, and included key responsibilities in peace-keeping after the Cold War and as a senior advisor to the Secretary-General, as well as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. Dr Tharoor left the UN on 31st  March 2007.

Dr Tharoor is also the award-winning author of ten books, as well as hundreds of articles, op-eds and book reviews in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, Time, Newsweek and The Times of India. He has served for two years as a Contributing Editor and occasional columnist for Newsweek International. Since April 2001, he has authored a fortnightly column in The Hindu and since January 2007 in The Times of India.

In January 1998, Dr. Tharoor was named a "Global Leader of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  He is the recipient of several awards, including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was named the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, in 2004,  India’s highest honour for overseas Indians.

Dr. Tharoor serves on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute India, and the Advisory Boards of the Indian-American Arts Council, the American India Foundation, the World Policy Journal, the Virtue Foundation and the human rights organization Breakthrough. Dr Tharoor has been appointed an International Advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva for the period 2008-2011. He is also a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and the Patron of the Modern School, Dubai.