Monica Juma is the Director-General/Executive Director of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV)/United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). She assumed office on 11 May 2026 and holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Ms. Juma is a strategic senior leader with a depth of expertise, experience and knowledge spanning public policy-making and execution in security, governance, diplomacy and international affairs.
She served as the first-ever National Security Adviser to the President of the Republic of Kenya and as Secretary to Kenya’s National Security Council from 2022 until 2026. Prior to this, Ms. Juma held the role of Cabinet Secretary in strategic ministries in Kenya, namely the Ministry of Energy; the Ministry of Defence; and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was Acting Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining from 2018 to 2022. Ms. Juma had also served as Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government; and the Ministry of Defence, between 2013 and 2018.
Ms. Juma was the Ambassador of Kenya to Ethiopia and Djibouti, and Permanent Representative of Kenya to the African Union, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) from 2010 to 2013.
Ms. Juma has wide-ranging academic experience in research and policy analysis, having served as Executive Director of the Research Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA); Adjunct Faculty Member of the African Centre for Strategic Studies at the National Defence University, Washington D.C.; Department of Political Science in the University of Pretoria, and as Senior Researcher/Policy Analyst at Safer Africa.
Ms. Juma holds a PhD and a Certificate in Refugee Studies from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) as well as an M.A. and a B.A. in Government and Public Administration from the University of Nairobi (Kenya). She speaks English and Kiswahili languages.
