Cheryl Cruz, Ambassador of Canada to Slovakia

Biography

Cheryl Cruz (BA [Sociology], University of Alberta, 1999; LLB, Dalhousie University, 2003; MPA, Dalhousie University, 2003; LLM, University of Cambridge, 2008) joined the Department of Justice Canada in 2003 and became a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada as a barrister and solicitor the following year. In 2006, she joined Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada as a foreign service officer. At Headquarters, she was senior legal officer in the Criminal, Security and Diplomatic Law Division (2008 to 2012), deputy director in the United Nations, Human Rights and Economic Law Division, where she was responsible for Canada’s economic sanctions regime (2012 to 2015), and deputy director responsible for nuclear non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament policy (2018 to 2021). Overseas, she has served at Canada’s embassies in Beirut, as adviser to the department’s Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (2006 to 2007), and in Ankara, where she was the political and economic counsellor responsible for Canada’s political, economic and public affairs in Türkiye, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (2015 to 2018). Since 2021, she has been head of office of Canada’s mission in Bratislava.