Thomas Drew (diplomat)

Thomas Drew CMG (born 26 September 1970) is a British diplomat who was most recently British High Commissioner to Pakistan from February 2016 to November 2019.^[1]

Career[]

Drew attended Charterhouse and then Trinity College, Oxford where he read Classics, graduating in 1993. He worked for McKinsey & Company for two-years before joining the Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service in 1995. After one two-year posting, he spent one year on full-time Russian language training before being posted to the British Embassy, Moscow in 1998 as a Second (later First) Secretary to lead the mission's economics team.^[2]

In 2002, Drew returned to London to head a unit running the UK's engagement with the EU inter-governmental conference that would eventually lead to the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Once the conference concluded in 2004, Drew continued in the EU Enlargement and South East Group until 2006, after which he was posted as the Political Counsellor to the British High Commission, Islamabad.

In 2008, Drew was loaned to the Home Office to be the Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism for three years. Drew returned to the Foreign Office in 2011 as Director of National Security, before becoming Principal Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary in 2012. In 2014 he left this post,^[2] and in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2015 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) "for services to British foreign policy interests".^[3]

During 2015 he was a Visiting Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute.^[4] He was appointed High Commissioner to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, presenting his credentials of office in February 2016.^[5]

References[]