Michael Powles
New Zealand diplomat
Michael John Powles (born 24 July 1939) is a retired New Zealand diplomat. He served as Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1996 to 2001 and as President of UNICEF in 1998.
Career
From 1962 to 1967 he exercised Private legal practice
In 1967 he joined Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand), Wellington.
From 1972 to 1975 he was clerk in the mission in Washington, D.C.
From 1975 to 1977 he was deputy director of the External Aid department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand).
From 1977 to 1979 he was head of Australia and Americas department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand).
From 1980 to 1982 he was High Commissioner in Suva with commission in Tuvalu, Kiribati and Nauru.
From 1982 to 1986 he was ambassador in Jakarta (Indonesia).
From 1986 to 1989 he was Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand).
From 1988 to 1989 he was Co-ord, Political, Security Affairs, department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (New Zealand).
From 1990 to 1993 he was ambassador in Beijing.
The public source identifies “Michael Powles” as new Zealand diplomat. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michael, Powles and Zealand.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26236247. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1996, 2001 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Powles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.