MI6 Names Its First Female Chief, Career Spy Blaise Metreweli
A career member of MI6, Ms. Metreweli was most recently the director general of technology and innovation, a position commonly referred to as Q — familiar to fans of the James Bond series where he (it has always been a he) outfits 007 with weaponized wristwatches or ejector-seat-equipped Aston Martin sports cars.
This fall, Ms. Metreweli will succeed Richard Moore as MI6's chief, a post that has been known by the letter C ever since the first chief of the Special Intelligence Service, Mansfield Cumming, signed his directives with C in the early 1900s. By tradition, the only publicly identified official in MI6 is the chief.
For the head of a spy agency, Mr. Moore was an uncharacteristically public figure. He moved between intelligence and diplomacy, serving as Britain's ambassador to Turkey after starting out as a field agent. Ms. Metreweli, by contrast, has spent her entire career in intelligence and has virtually no public profile.
She joined the service in 1999 after studying anthropology at Cambridge University and served in operational roles in the Middle East and Europe, according to 10 Downing Street, which announced the appointment as Prime Minister Keir Starmer was flying to Canada to attend a summit meeting of the Group of 7 leaders.
In a statement, Mr. Starmer hailed the appointment as 'historic' and left no doubt about the stakes of Ms. Metreweli's job.
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