Syed Akbaruddin is a retired Indian civil servant from 1985 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and served as India's permanent representative at the United Nations at New York from January 2016 to April 2020. He had previously served as official spokesperson of India's Ministry of External Affairs from January 2012 to April 2015 and was Indian representative at IAEA from 2006 to 2011. He is currently serving as the dean of Kautilya School of Public Policy.