British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced the appointment of the first woman in history to head the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). This was reported by UNN with reference to the publication Bloomberg and The British Government.
Details
According to the statement, the new head of MI6 will be 47-year-old Blaise Metreweli, who will replace Richard Moore in this position in the autumn. She is currently the Director General of Technology and Innovation at this special service.
According to Starmer, the appointment comes at a time "when the work of our intelligence services has never been more important."
The United Kingdom faces threats of unprecedented scale - whether it is aggressors sending their spy ships into our waters or hackers whose sophisticated cyber plots seek to disrupt the work of our public services
It is noted that Blaise Metreweli will be the 18th head of MI-6 and the first woman in this position, which is usually referred to as the letter "C", and not the code name "M", which was used by Judi Dench, portraying the fictional head of MI-6, created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond films.
The designation comes from the name of Captain Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first chief of the service, who signed correspondence with the letter "C" in green ink. Metreweli as the head of MI-6 will be the only publicly named member of the organization.
She joined the special service in 1999, worked throughout Europe and the Middle East, and previously held the position of director in MI-5 (the country's domestic intelligence service).
Bloomberg also reported that although Metreweli is going to be the first woman to head MI-6, the MI-5 intelligence service had two female leaders:
- Stella Rimington, who worked from 1992 to 1996;
- Eliza Manningham-Buller, who held this position from 2002 to 2007.
Let us remind you
Interviews for the position of head of MI-6 took place at the beginning of May 2025, and all three final candidates were women - two of them were MI-6 officers. The favorite was Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward, but her appointment caused controversy due to her views on China.