KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, has appointed Ariel Bowen as Jamaica’s seventh ambassador to Japan.

According to a ministry release on Friday, Bowen is a career diplomat with more than 30 years’ experience in the foreign service. She succeeds Ambassador Shorna-Kay Richards and currently serves as officer-in-charge at the Consulate-General of Jamaica in New York, a post she has held since November last year.

“Mrs Bowen brings to this assignment broad diplomatic experience and a deep understanding of the ministry’s work and Jamaica’s foreign policy priorities. I am confident that she will build on the work of Ambassador Richards and further advance the longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship between Jamaica and Japan,” Johnson Smith said while commending Bowen on her appointment.

An alumna of Holy Childhood High School, the ambassador-designate holds a Master of Science in Government, specialising in International Relations, from the University of the West Indies, Mona, and a Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences from London South Bank University.

Over the course of her career, Bowen has gained wide-ranging experience in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, economic affairs, consular services, protocol and diaspora engagement, the release said.

Prior to her current assignment, she served as under-secretary (acting) in the ministry’s Diaspora, Protocol and Consular Division, with responsibility for managing the division’s operations and overseeing the development and implementation of related policies.

She previously held the posts of senior director in the division and director of the Consular Affairs Department. She has also played a central role in the delivery of several major initiatives led by the ministry, including the Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conferences, the inaugural Government Protocol Conference in 2023, and the ministry’s annual Diplomatic Week activities.

Her overseas assignments have included service as minister-counsellor with responsibility for trade, economic and diaspora affairs at the Embassy of Jamaica in Washington, DC (2012–2017); counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations (UN) in New York (2004–2008), where she represented Jamaica on social and humanitarian issues as a Third Committee expert; and attaché at the Jamaican High Commission in London (1989–1998).

During her tenure at the United Nations, Bowen helped to coordinate the 2007 Commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, an important feature of which was the establishment of the Permanent Memorial to the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, unveiled in March 2015 at the visitors’ entrance of UN Headquarters in New York.

Jamaica and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1964 and continue to cooperate in areas including trade and investment, education, culture, maritime affairs, technical cooperation and development.

Bowen is expected to assume office in Tokyo in a few weeks.