Peter Ricketts

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Sir Peter Ricketts, KCMG is the Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a senior civil servant in the United Kingdom.

He was educated at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School Sutton Coldfield, and Pembroke College Oxford where he read English Literature. He joined the FCO in 1974 and his early postings were to Singapore (his favourite) and UKDel NATO Brussels (where he met and married Suzanne, also then a member of the FCO, now a teacher of English as a Foreign Language).

In the early 1980s he worked on the Arab/Israel desk at the time of the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon, then as an Assistant Private Secretary to Sir Geoffrey Howe, where the Middle East, the Falklands and the future of Hong Kong kept him busy.

Then Peter and his family then had four tremendous years in Washington, before he returned to the FCO for spells on Security Policy and as Head of Hong Kong Department in the early period of Chris Patten’s governorship.

In preparation for a posting to Paris as Economic and Finance Counsellor in 1995, Peter spent several months on secondment to the Treasury, followed by a short course on economics at the LSE, which he found a really rewarding and mind-opening experience. After two and a bit years in Paris, it was back to the FCO as Deputy Political Director, dealing particularly with the Balkans. He led the FCO team dealing with the Kosovo conflict and the arrival of NATO peacekeeping troops; an unforgettable time.

Then in quick succession he was Director International Security before being seconded to the Cabinet Office as Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He left that job one week before 9/11 to come back to the FCO as Political Director. His two years in that job were dominated by crisis management and post-conflict work: the military action in Afghanistan, then the UN diplomacy on Iraq followed by the war, with plenty of activity as well on EU foreign, security and defence policy.

From July 2003 he was UK Permanent Representative to NATO in Brussels, where he led an integrated team of FCO and MOD staff and military officers pursuing UK interests in NATO from the military deployment in Afghanistan to the future membership prospects of Ukraine.

Before Ricketts took over the position on the retirement of Sir Michael Jay, he served as the Permanent Representative to NATO in Brussels.

Peter was born in 1952. He and Suzanne have a son of 23 and a daughter of 19. They relax by getting away when they can to work on their house in Normandy.

Source: www.fco.gov.uk