John Sawers

Sir Robert John Sawers GCMG (born 26 July 1955) is a former British diplomat and senior civil servant. He was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a position he held from November 2009 until November 2014. He was previously the British Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2007 to November 2009.

Born in Warwick, Sawers was brought up in a family of five children in Bath and educated at the City of Bath Boys' School (which became Beechen Cliff School before he left), where he still holds the 440-yard hurdles school record. He is a descendant of the historic Stratford family through his maternal grandmother. He studied physics and philosophy at the University of Nottingham, and spent periods at the Universities of St Andrews, Witwatersrand and Harvard. During his time at Nottingham he took a year out of his studies to serve in the students' union committee. His interests include theatre, hiking and sport, especially tennis and cycling. His wife Shelley is a teacher. They have three grown-up children.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Sawers joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1977. In his early career, Sawers worked in Yemen and Syria, on behalf of MI6. He became Political Officer in Damascus in 1982 and then returned to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to take up the role of Desk Officer in the European Union Department in 1984 and Private Secretary to the Minister of State in 1986.

He was based in Pretoria and then Cape Town in South Africa from 1988 to 1991 during the first part of the transition from apartheid. He returned to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office yet again to take up the roles of Head of European Union Presidency Planning Unit in 1991 and Principal Private Secretary to Douglas Hurd in 1993. The period was dominated by war in Bosnia, crises in the Middle East, and the debate in Britain on the European Union.

From 1995 to 1998 he was in the United States and spent a year as an International Fellow at Harvard University and later at the British Embassy in Washington D. C., where he headed the Foreign and Defence Policy team.

From January 1999 to summer 2001 he was Foreign Affairs Adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, dealing with all aspects of foreign and defence policy and working closely with international counterparts. The period included the Kosovo War. He also worked on the Northern Ireland peace process and the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. He reviewed the Iraq sanctions policy during this period and issued a document that included consideration of regime change.

He served two years in the Middle East as Ambassador to Egypt from 2001 to 2003, and for three months was the British Government's Special Representative in Baghdad assisting in the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority as the transitional government during the Occupation of Iraq.

In August 2003 Sawers was appointed Director General for Political Affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In this post he advised the Foreign Secretary on political and security issues worldwide and negotiated on behalf of the Foreign Secretary with international partners in the G8, EU and the UN. He was particularly closely involved in policy on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. Sawers headed the British team in the EU-3 negotiations over Iran's nuclear program in 2006, utilising his scientific background on nuclear matters.

In 2007 he became British Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Sawers is a governor of the Ditchley Foundation, which aims to promote international, especially Anglo-American, relations.

Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service

Sawers was announced as the new chief of the Secret Intelligence Service on 16 June 2009, succeeding Sir John Scarlett. He took up his new appointment in November 2009. In July 2009 his family details were removed from the social networking site Facebook following media interest in the contents. On 10 and 16 December 2009 Sawers gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry. In July 2010 his salary was revealed to the public to be in the range of £160,000 to £169,999.

During the Syrian Civil War Sawers supported the Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards in drawing up plans to train and equip a Syrian rebel army of 100,000 to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, as an alternative option to the government’s plan for limited direct military involvement. The plans were rejected by the National Security Council as too ambitious. Ultimately on 29 August 2013, parliament refused to support the government's plan to participate in military strikes against the Syrian government.

Sawers announced his intention to stand down from chief of the Secret Intelligence Service by November 2014, the fifth anniversary of his appointment. He was replaced by Alex Younger.

Already Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG), he was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to national security.

Later career

After retiring as Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service Sawers became Partner and Chairman of Macro Advisory Partners, who provide strategic advice and insights to investors and governments. He also became a Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.