Soad Shalaby is an Egyptian diplomat, who has served her country for 40 years including as ambassador to several countries. She is presently the Director General of the Egyptian African Centre for Women and is serving her second term as a member of the Board of the Tana High Level Forum. She is a founding member of FEMWISE, the Arab Women Mediators Network, MWMN and a member of the Global Alliance of Regional Women Mediator Networks contact group. She was elected Member of the Committee of Elders of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa for a 5-year term. Elected twice, she served for ten years as Member of the Council of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in Sanremo. From 2007 to 2012, she was the Director of the Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding. Throughout her career, she was selected member of the AU Panel of Experts for the Evaluation of the African Standby Force in 2014; member of the expert group who launched the report of the AU MSU; member of the POW team for the Evaluation of the present Kenyan pre Presidential Election; and headed the COMESA team for monitoring the parliamentarian election in the Kingdom of Swaziland. She completed many courses such as the AU Senior Mission Leaders Course and the Clingendael Institute Course on Negotiation and Mediation as a tool for conflict resolution. She published several articles, nationally and internationally on WPS, and is a regular commentator and a guest speaker on African issues on Nile TV international, and many regional and international conferences.