Naivakarurubalavu Solo Mara was appointed on October 30, 2015 to be Fiji’s ambassador to the United States. It’s Mara’s second ambassadorial assignment.

Mara was born Sept. 14, 1967 and is from Nacomoto village in the Naceva district of Fiji’s Kadavu province. He attended the Marist School in Suva, Fiji’s capital, graduating in 1983. Mara went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Fiji’s University of the South Pacific in 1988, a degree in politics from Sing Fu Kang College of Republic of China in 1991 and a master’s degree in international relations from the International University of Japan in 1997.

Mara began his government service as an official in the Ministry of the Interior in 1989. He moved to the office of Prime Minister Kamisese Mara in 1991 and became a senior policy analyst there later that year. He assumed a similar role in 1998 at the Ministry of the Interior.

Mara moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000 as an assistant secretary. He was sent to London as first secretary in Fiji’s High Commission there in 2002. In 2006, Mara returned to Fiji in the ministry’s division for international relations as its director, moving to vice secretary of the ministry the following year.

He was sent overseas again in 2008 as counselor in the Fiji embassy in Brussels, but returned home the following year to become the ministry’s Permanent Secretary. In 2011, Mara was made High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, with concurrent responsibilities as ambassador to Germany, Denmark, Israel, Ireland and the Holy See.

Mara is married to Kerry Megan Mara and has four children. He speaks English and Japanese.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Mara is Fiji’s Next Ambassador to the USA (by Keresi Nauwakarawa, Fiji Times)

“L’uomo Vale Più per Quello Che è Che per Quello Che Ha” (by Paul De Maeyer, Zenit)