About Nick

I started work as Ambassador on 14 October 2008.

I graduated from Durham University, where I studied English and German, in 1982. I worked briefly at the auctioneers Sotheby’s before joining the Foreign Office the following year.I learnt Arabic and served in Jordan from 1986 to 1989. Returning to London, I worked on the Middle East Peace Process, representing the UK at the Madrid Peace Conference, and then served as Private Secretary to the then Minister of State, Douglas Hogg QC MP, from 1992 to 1995. In this role I travelled extensively in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.I was posted to Norway in 1995, as Head of the Economic and Commercial Section of the Embassy. I served two years there before returning early to the UK to join the Household of HRH The Prince of Wales as Private Secretary responsible for the foreign and cultural aspects of His Royal Highness’s work. I was awarded an MVO for services to The Royal Family in 2001.

Back in the Foreign Office, I was Head of the North East Asia and Pacific Department from 2001 to 2002 before returning to Middle Eastern affairs as Head of the Near East and North Africa Department from 2002 to 2005. I then worked with the National Audit Office on their report on the British consular response to the Tsunami, published in the autumn of 2005. I served as High Commissioner – the name we give to Ambassadors to Commonwealth countries - in Malta from March 2006 to August 2008.

I married Erica Power in 1999. Erica is a barrister and member of Lincoln’s Inn. We have two sons; Alexander, born in 2004, and Christian, born in 2005.