Background
He was born in Derby, where his parents worked for Rolls Royce Limited.
He was born in Derby, where his parents worked for Rolls Royce Limited.
He attended Nottingham High School on a free scholarship from 1976 to 1983. He studied at Street John"s College Oxford, where he took a First-Class degree in French and History, specialising in medieval European History and medieval French.
He spent 25 years as a British diplomat, working among other things as British Ambassador in Denmark, European Union Director in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Director covering Europe and international trade at the Department for Business. He joined the Foreign Office in 1987 and shortly after was posted to the British High Commission in Nicosia where he learned Greek and was responsible for covering Greek Cypriot politics and the Cyprus problem. In 1993 he was posted to the United Kingdom Representation to the European Union in Brussels as First Secretary for Economic and Financial Affairs, where he worked on issues such as the European Union Budget, the economic and financial implications of enlargement to Central Europe, and the ~Euro.
He was then posted to the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations in New York, where he covered human rights and social and economic affairs
He returned to London to be successively the Private Secretary to the Head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir John (now Lord) Kerr, and Deputy Head of the European Union External Department, covering international trade policy issues and relations with the Balkans and Eastern Europe. He was posted as Economic Counsellor to the British Embassy in Paris in 2001, where he was responsible for reporting and lobbying on all aspects of French economic and commercial life, together with its European Union policy.
He returned to London to be Head of the European Union (Internal) Department and then Director for the European Union in the Foreign Office. In this period he led work on a range of economic and social issues, notably the resistance to the initial Working Time Directive, and the negotiation on the European Union"s multiannual Budget framework.
He was part of the United Kingdom"s leadership team during the European Union Presidency in 2005.
From May 2006 until October 2008, he was the British Ambassador to Denmark. He was then Director for Strategy and Policy Planning in the Foreign Office from October 2008 to October 2010. He then went on loan to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills where he served three years as Director for Europe, Trade, and International Affairs, Britain"s most senior trade policy official
He left the Diplomatic Service at the end of 2013.
He remains a specialist in and commentator on the European Union, global economic and commercial issues, and multilateral diplomacy, and is an member of the Advisory Council of the European Union think tank Open Europe.