Anne Keast-Butler
British intelligence official appointed director of GCHQ in May 2023
| Anne Keast-Butler
| |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Director of GCHQ from May 2023 |
| Education | Mathematics, Merton College, Oxford |
| Predecessor | Jeremy Fleming |
Anne Keast-Butler began serving as director of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in May 2023, succeeding Jeremy Fleming. GCHQ’s biography, checked in November 2026, identifies her as the seventeenth person to hold the role.[1]
Intelligence career
Keast-Butler joined GCHQ from the MI5, where she had been Deputy Director General responsible for operational, investigative and protective-security work. The official biography also records an earlier role as Director General Strategy, responsible for functions supporting operations.[1]
Before her appointment as director, she spent two years seconded to GCHQ as Head of Counter Terrorism and Serious Organised Crime. During a separate secondment in Whitehall, she helped launch the National Cyber Security Programme, according to the same account.[1]
Education
GCHQ’s biography states that Keast-Butler grew up in Cambridge and studied mathematics at Merton College, Oxford.[1]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 GCHQ, Anne Keast-Butler, undated, accessed 7 November 2026 (Europe/London, GMT).