Speaker — Neptune Forum 2026
Ashok Adicéam
Executive Director of Mission Neptune
Executive Director, Mission Neptune
Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères
Ashok Adicéam is Executive Director of Mission Neptune and serves at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs alongside Ambassador Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, Special Envoy for Polar and Maritime Issues. He was Executive Director of the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) held in Nice in June 2025, which played a key role in advancing momentum around the ratification of the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ). In this capacity, he led major international mobilisation efforts, notably through the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco, and conceived the award-winning “La Baleine” initiative at UNOC in partnership with the global agency WMH. He also served as Executive Director and deputy to the Ambassador for the One Ocean Summit (Brest, 2022) and SOS Ocean (Paris, 2025), introduced by Harrison Ford and concluded by President Emmanuel Macron. Over more than two decades within France’s international diplomatic and cultural network, he directed French Institutes in the United States, the United Kingdom, India and Nigeria. In Paris, he held senior positions at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, including Secretary General of the Year of Francophonie under President Jacques Chirac. Holding a PhD in Political and Social Sciences, his work today focuses on the intersection of science, diplomacy, exploration and global ocean governance through Mission Neptune.