Britain’s real-life spies have finally caught up with James Bond. MI6 has appointed its first female chief.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday announced that Blaise Metreweli is to be the next head of the UK’s foreign intelligence agency, and the first woman to hold the post since its founding in 1909.
Metreweli is currently the MI6 director of technology and innovation — the real-world equivalent of Bond gadget-master Q.
Photo: AP
A career intelligence officer, Metreweli, 47, steps from the shadows into the light as the only MI6 employee whose name is made public.
“I am proud and honored to be asked to lead my service,” she said.
Starmer said the “historic appointment” comes at a time “when the work of our intelligence services has never been more vital.
“The United Kingdom is facing threats on an unprecedented scale — be it aggressors who send their spy ships to our waters or hackers whose sophisticated cyberplots seek to disrupt our public services,” he said.
Starmer made the announcement as he arrived in the Canadian province of Alberta for a G7 leaders’ summit.
Metreweli takes over at MI6 as the agency faces growing challenges from states including China and Russia, whose use of cyber tools, espionage and influence operations threatens global stability and British interests, even as it remains on alert against terrorist threats.
Metreweli is the first woman to get the top job, known as C — rather than M, the fictional MI6 chief of the 007 thrillers. M was played onscreen by Judi Dench in seven Bond movies starting in the 1990s.
She is to take up her post in the fall, replacing Richard Moore, who has held the job for five years.
Britain’s two other main intelligence agencies have already shattered the spy world’s glass ceiling. MI5, the domestic security service, was led by Stella Rimington from 1992 to 1996, and Eliza Manningham-Buller between 2002 and 2007. Anne Keast-Butler became head of electronic and cyberintelligence agency GCHQ in 2023.
Moore, an Oxford-educated former diplomat, fit the 007 mold like a Savile Row suit. However, in recent years MI6 has worked to increase diversity, broadening its recruitment process from the traditional “tap on the shoulder” at an elite university. The agency’s Web site stresses its family-friendly flexible working policy, and goal of recruiting “talented people from all backgrounds.”
Moore suggested he would like his successor to be a woman. He wrote on X in 2023 that he would “help forge women’s equality by working to ensure I’m the last C selected from an all-male shortlist.”
Like many things about MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service, the process of choosing a new chief took place out of public view. It began with the country’s top civil servant writing to government departments in March asking them to put forward candidates. The job was open to applicants from other intelligence agencies, the civil service, the diplomatic service, the armed forces or the police.
In the end, MI6 opted for an internal candidate with a 25-year career in espionage, a degree in anthropology from Cambridge University — where she was on the women’s rowing team — and expertise in cutting-edge technology.
“At a time of global instability and emerging security threats, where technology is power and our adversaries are working ever closer together, Blaise will ensure the UK can tackle these challenges head on to keep Britain safe and secure at home and abroad,” said British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy, who oversees MI6.
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