Kumar Iyer

Kumar Sabapathy Iyer is a British economist and civil servant, who will serve as Chief Economist of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from July 2019.

Born in London, Iyer grew up in India and then Stoke-on-Trent, and went to school at Blurton High School and then Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College, and then read economics at Durham University (BA). As an undergraduate he served as President of the Durham Union. He continued his education at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MPhil), and then Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar.

Iyer joined the civil service, being hired from Boston Consulting Group into the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit in 2008 as part of the UK government's response to the 2007 financial crisis. In 2010 he transferred to HM Treasury as the deputy director for Strategy, Planning & Budget, and then as the Head of Financial Sector Interventions.

From 2013 until 2017, Iyer served as India as the Foreign Office's deputy High Commissioner for Western India, based in Mumbai, and simultaneously as UK Trade & Investment's Director General for Economics, Trade and Commercial Affairs in South Asia.

After leaving his post in India, Iyer worked as a "Visiting Academic" at Hertford College, Oxford, and as a senior partner in Oliver Wyman. In June 2019, it was announced that Iyer would serve as the Foreign & Commonwealth Office's first chief economist, on the FCO Board. He is consequently the FCO's first ethnic-minority Board member.

Iyer married Kathryn Ann Worth, a criminal barrister at Middle Temple in 2004; they have one son and one daughter.