Difference between revisions of "Sherard Cowper-Coles"

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Sir [[Sherard Cowper-Coles]] is a former [[British Ambassador in Afghanistan]]. In February 2011 he was appointed Business Development Director, International Operating Group at [[BAE Systems]]. In 2013 he left [[BAE Systems]] and of Non Executive Director of HSBC Bank Egypt S.A.E. on October 1, 2014 [http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=275098958&privcapId=23697602].
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Sir [[Sherard Cowper-Coles]] is a former [[British Ambassador in Afghanistan]]. In February 2011 he was appointed Business Development Director, International Operating Group at [[BAE Systems]]. In 2013, Cowper-Coles left [[BAE Systems]] and assumed the position of Non Executive Director of HSBC Bank Egypt S.A.E. on October 1, 2014 [http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=275098958&privcapId=23697602].
  
 
==Diplomatic career==
 
==Diplomatic career==

Revision as of 12:52, 8 September 2016

Revolving Door.jpg This article is part of the Revolving Door project of Spinwatch.



Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is a former British Ambassador in Afghanistan. In February 2011 he was appointed Business Development Director, International Operating Group at BAE Systems. In 2013, Cowper-Coles left BAE Systems and assumed the position of Non Executive Director of HSBC Bank Egypt S.A.E. on October 1, 2014 [1].

Diplomatic career

Cowper-Coles joined the Foreign Office as a desk officer in the Republic of Ireland Department in 1977.[1] He was Third Secretary and later Second Secretary in Cairo, 1980–1983, First Secretary in the Planning Staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1983–1985; Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-secretary of State, 1985–1987, First Secretary in Washington, 1987–1991, Assistant in the Security Policy Department of the FCO, 1991–1993, Resident Associate, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1993–1994; Head of the Hong Kong Department of the FCO, 1994–1997, Political Counsellor in Paris, 1997–1999; Principal Private Secretary to Robin Cook, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 1999–2001.

His first role as a head of mission was in Tel Aviv as the British Ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2003. He was next appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, a post that he held until 2006. Since 15 May 2007 he has served as ambassador to Afghanistan in Kabul.

Revolving door

  • Business Development Director, International Operating Group, BAE Systems, February 2011. ACOBA said, "given that it has been 4 years since he had any involvement with BAE Systems as HM Ambassador to Riyadh, and that the appointment will be 4 months since his last day of service, the appointment was approved subject to the condition that, for 2 years from his last day of service, he should not become personally involved in lobbying UK Government Ministers or Crown servants, including Special Advisers, on behalf of his new employer".[2]

Media management

Robert Fisk writes:

Indeed, I remember way back in the late 1970s - when I was Middle East correspondent for The Times - how a British diplomat in Cairo tried to persuade me to fire my local "stringer", an Egyptian Coptic woman who also worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press and who provided a competent coverage of the country when I was in Beirut. "She isn't much good," he said, and suggested I hire a young Englishwoman whom he knew and who - so I later heard - had close contacts in the Foreign Office.
I refused this spooky proposal. Indeed, I told The Times that I thought it was outrageous that a British diplomat should have tried to engineer the sacking of our part-timer in Cairo. The Times's foreign editor agreed.
But it just shows what diplomats can get up to.
And the name of that young British diplomat in Cairo back in the late 1970s? Why, Sherard Cowper-Coles, of course.[3]

Connections

Notes

  1. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. Cherwell24, 12 October 2007, accessed 28 March 2008.
  2. Twelfth Report 2010-2011 Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, accessed 8 December 2014
  3. 'Abu Henry' and the mysterious silence I guess that's what diplomacy is all about, persuading here, pleading there The Independent, Saturday, 30 June 2007