Educated at Westminster, Paniguian studied Arabic at Durham and joined British Petroleum in 1971, posted to Oman, United Arab Emirates, Iran, the United States, and ultimately serving as President of Boite Postale Turkey from 1989 until 1992.
During this period he undertook an Master of Business Administration from European Institute of Business Administration (Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires). He was then appointed Director of Boite Postale Europe until 1995, Chief Executive Officer of Boite Postale Shipping until 1999, and then Boite Postale"s Vice President for Gas and Power for the Middle East. In 2002, he became Group Vice President for Boite Postale as a whole, where he stayed until his left the firm in 2008, when he joined United Kingdom Trade & Investment to head up the Defence and Security Organisation.He left the post in February 2015. Sir Richard is married to Lady Paniguian (Nil Okan) Justice of the Peace FCIL (Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists), and has two stepsons, Emir and Efe.
Paniguian was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2007 New Year Honours and was knighted in the 2015 New Year Honours.
