Blaise Metreweli is the 18th chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), appointed on June 15th 2025 and taking over on October 1st. She is the first woman to hold the role. She succeeded Sir Richard Moore.
Ms Metreweli, born around 1978, is a career intelligence officer who joined MI6 in 1999, shortly before the 9/11 attacks pushed counter-terrorism to the top of the agenda. Her first job was in counter-proliferation, where she engaged with the "deep science" of nuclear technology. Diplomatic lists suggest she was stationed in the Basra station in Iraq after the British invasion. She later served in Europe, other parts of the Middle East and in the branch of MI5 countering hostile state activity. She has been described as "operational to her fingertips".
Before becoming chief she was director-general of "Q" branch, in charge of technology and innovation. In that role she led on artificial intelligence not just for MI6 but the entire UK Intelligence Community (UKIC), which includes MI5 and GCHQ. She is thought to have lobbied hard for a shift in resources towards AI, often against internal scepticism. She is a familiar figure at tech conferences and well-regarded among tech executives.
She rowed at Cambridge.
The selection came down to two women: Ms Metreweli and Barbara Woodward, a former ambassador to China. Dame Barbara, a seasoned diplomat, was considered to have the edge in intelligence diplomacy, which has dominated the role in recent years. The choice of an internal candidate with operational and technological experience over a diplomat was seen as reflecting Keir Starmer's priorities.
In the cold war, women in MI6 were treated as inferior agent-runners and had to resign if they married. Even into the 1990s, the few senior women in the service were unmarried. By 2025 three out of MI6's four director-generals are women. The June 2025 spending review allocated an extra £600m ($813m) to the intelligence agencies. David Spedding, appointed in 1994, was only the second chief to be named in public; until that year the service did not officially exist.
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