The United Kingdom’s top foreign spook is, for the first time, a woman. The new boss of MI6 – or to give its correct title, ‘Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)’ – is referred to as ‘the Chief’ or more commonly as ‘C’, and is the only member of staff who is publicly named.

In a case where life finally imitates art (Dame Judi Dench having played ‘M’), Blaise Metreweli became the 18th Chief of the SIS on October 1st.

She reports directly to the Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, and is responsible for ensuring the UK operates securely all over the world in our mission to keep the country safe. By Alan Wares

Blaise Metreweli CMG took over from the outgoing Sir Richard Moore on October 1st to become the 18th person to hold the title of ‘C’, having previously held the role of Director General of Technology and Innovation within the SIS. One does love a title…

Although publicly named and acknowledged by HM Government, details of Metreweli’s background are - understandably – a bit patchy. Except to others in the espionage community, one presumes.

Blaise Metreweli was born in 1977 and spent part of her childhood in Hong Kong. She attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College and graduated in 1993. She subsequently attended Westminster School in London. From 1994 to 1995, Metreweli was captain of Westminster School. She then studied anthropology, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Cambridge in 1998, a well-trodden breeding ground for international espionage. 

While at Cambridge, alongside future Olympians Sarah Winckless, Francesca Zino and Alison Mowbray, she was a member of the Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club Blue Boat crew that won the 1997 Women’s Boat Race against Oxford University.

Metreweli’s father, Constantine Metreweli, was born Constantine Dobrowolski, himself the son of a Nazi collaborator, in Snovsk in the Chernigov Oblast of the Nazi-occupied Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1943. He came to England with his mother, who then married David Metreweli in Yorkshire in 1947. 

After attending The Latymer School, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, he became a physician and radiologist and was chair of diagnostic radiology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also trained in the British Army, and did a medical residency in Riyadh from 1982 to 1985. He had taken the surname Metreweli, which is of Georgian origin, from his stepfather.

After the Daily Mail – which at times still likes to think communism still exists, and re-live old Cold War sentiment and conspriacy – broke the story about Metreweli’s paternal grandfather in June 2025, following the announcement that Metreweli was going to be head of MI6, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) stated that she had never known him and that her complex Eastern European heritage had “contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6”.

In other words, the FCO was more than happy with her appointment and, unusually, confirmed as much in public.

Career

Metreweli joined SIS in 1999, and spent much of her early career in the Middle East, at a time when Britain was involved militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since that time, she has worked continuously as an intelligence officer, including director-level roles at MI5. (While the head of the SIS is known as ‘the Chief’, the head of MI5 is ‘the Director General’).

Metreweli’s roles in intelligence have included senior positions in the Middle East, where, for obvious reasons, she is fluent in Arabic. Her focus on counterterrorism has required her to address state threats against a backdrop of complex geopolitical issues, including China’s biometric surveillance and cyberattacks by Russia. From 2000 until 2003, Metreweli was Second Secretary for Economic in Dubai, for the FCO. Around the time that John Sawers became Chief of MI6 in 2009, Metrewli was heading up an MI6 station in the Middle East.

During her career, Metreweli has given newspaper interviews: to The Telegraph in 2021 (under the code name “Director K”), and to the Financial Times in 2022 (under the pseudonym “Ada”).  

As of December 2021, she was on secondment as Head of Hostile States Counterintelligence (“Director K”) to MI5. As of June 2025, Metreweli was Director General of Technology and Innovation (euphemistically referred to as “Q”) at SIS. At that time, and for the first time, three of the four SIS directors-general were women.

In June 2025, Metreweli was announced as the next chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). There were four candidates for chief of the SIS: three from the British intelligence agencies and Barbara Woodward from the Foreign Office. Metreweli is the first female head of MI6, who is known as “C”.

Reacting to Metreweli’s appointment, outogoing Chief Sir Richard Moore said: “I am absolutely delighted by this historic appointment of my colleague, Blaise Metreweli to succeed me as ‘C’. Blaise is a highly accomplished intelligence officer and leader, and one of our foremost thinkers on technology.”

As chief of MI6, she will become the only publicly named member of the service. To underline the next-cab-off-the-rank approach from Cambridge to Vauxhall Cross, she will be the third chief (out of 18) who graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Recognition

Metreweli was appointed a Companion of the Order of St. Michael & St. George (CMG) in the King’s Birthday Honours for 2024, where she was listed as “Director General, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office” with a citation of “For services to British Foreign Policy”.

Well, that’s the official version…

WOMEN IN TOP ROLES

Incidentally, if you think we’ve been here before with female secret services bosses, Dame Stella Rimington became the first woman director general of the real MI5 after working in different roles in the service since 1969.

In 2002, Eliza Manningham-Buller became the director general of MI5 after working for the service since 1974. Anne Keast-Butler currently leads GCHQ. She was previously the deputy director general of M15.

Meanwhile in the US, Tulsi Gabbard currently serves as the director of national intelligence for President Donald Trump. Her predecessor under former US President Joe Biden was also a woman, Avril Haines.

Gina Haspel was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2018 to 2021. In Australia, Kerri Hartland leads the foreign intelligence collection agency, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).