Maurice Gourdault-Montagne served as the Secretary-General of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2017 until 2019. He began his career in the diplomatic service in 1978. Gourdault-Montagne was the French Ambassador to Tokyo from 1998 to 2002. From 2002 to 2007, he was the Senior Diplomatic Counsellor to the former French President Jacques Chirac and a G7/G8 sherpa. He went on to be the French Ambassador in London, Berlin and Beijing between 2007 and 2017. He is a graduate of Institut d'Études Politiques, Paris and Institute for Oriental languages and civilization (INALCO), as well as Paris-Assas, where he completed his master’s degree in Law.