Richard Moore (diplomat)


Richard Peter Moore, is currently the Director General, Political, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was previously the British Ambassador to Turkey. He will become the head of MI6 in autumn 2020.

Education

Moore attended St George's College, Weybridge, a Roman Catholic independent school in Surrey. Afterwards, Moore studied PPE at Worcester College, Oxford where he gained a bachelor's degree. He then won a Kennedy Scholarship to study at the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University. In 2007, he attended the Stanford Executive Programme.

Career

Moore's notable career has been in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, the first of which he joined in 1987. He has had minor postings to Vietnam 1988, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and Malaysia. He was the section head of the Security Policy Group at the FCO from 1998 to 2001 and the Deputy Director of the Middle East from 2005 to 2008.
Moore's first major role in the FCO was Director for Programmes and Change, a post which he held from 2008–2010. He then went on to be Director for Europe, Latin America and Globalization.
Moore's first public appointment was the British Ambassador to Turkey. He held this post for three years, from 2014 to 2017. He then took a short stint as Deputy National Security Advisor in 2018. His current appointment is Director-General, Political in the FCO, a post which he has held since 2018 and will retire from in Autumn 2020. On 29 July 2020, it was announced that Moore will become the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in autumn 2020.

Personal life

Moore was born in Tripoli, Libya on the 9 May 1963 to John Robert Moore and Patricia Moore In 1985, he married Margaret Patricia Isabel Martin, with whom he has had a son and a daughter.
In his spare time, Moore enjoys: golf; watching cricket and rugby; reading; TV; travel; hiking; scuba-diving; Turkish carpets and porcelain; and visiting historical sites. He is fluent in Turkish.