Secretariat
Shatabhisha SHETTY

Shatabhisha SHETTY (Executive Director)

Shatabhisha Shetty is the Executive Director for the Asia Pacific Leadership Network. She is a co-founder of the European Leadership Network (ELN), serving as Deputy Director for over 10 years before joining APLN.

Shatabhisha SHETTY has been the Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN) since March 2021 and has been with APLN since October 2020. She is a co-founder of the APLN’s sister organization, the European Leadership Network (ELN), serving as Deputy Director for over a decade before joining APLN. Shata has previously worked at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the British Council, and the European Commission. In 2009, she helped establish and run the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, a cross-party parliamentary grouping comprised of former British Foreign and Defence Secretaries and Chiefs of Defence Staff focused on reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons globally. Shata co-founded and co-chaired the UK Branch of Women in International Security (WIIS-UK) and remains an advisory board member of WIIS-UK. She is also a project advisory board member of Leicester University’s Third Nuclear Age, assessing strategic conventional weapons and the next revolution in the global nuclear order, as well as a steering group member of the Belfer Center coordinated "Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence" research network, specifically the Arms Control and Emerging Technologies working group. Her research interests include nuclear and conventional arms control, global disarmament diplomacy, great power politics, and emerging technologies, and she has written and spoken internationally on a range of related issues. She has a master’s in international public policy from University College London and a bachelor’s with honours in Computer Science from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.