Biography – Sir Stewart Eldon, KCMG, OBE
Born in Accra in 1953, Stewart Eldon was educated at Pocklington School in Yorkshire and Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he gained a starred First in Electrical Sciences in 1974. He spent two further years at Cambridge engaged in research on semiconductor lasers, for which he was awarded an MSc in 1976. He is a Member of the Institute for Engineering and Technology (formerly the Institute of Electrical Engineering).
On joining the Diplomatic Service in 1976, Sir Stewart was posted to the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations. Further periods of work on UN matters followed in London and New York before he was posted to the Political Section of the Embassy in Bonn in 1978.
After returning to London in 1982 on promotion to First Secretary, Sir Stewart spent 18 months working on Irish affairs in Republic of Ireland Department of the FCO. He then served for nearly three years as Private Secretary to Baroness Young, who was at that time Minister of State in the FCO and Deputy to Sir Geoffrey Howe. He was posted back to the UK Mission, New York in 1986, where he covered African and Asian affairs in the UN Security Council and General Assembly and acted as Deputy Head of Chancery.
In August 1990 Sir Stewart returned to the FCO as Assistant Head of Middle Eastern Department. He served as Deputy Crisis Manager during the Gulf War and was awarded an OBE in the Gulf Honours List in 1991. In December 1991, on promotion to Counsellor, he was seconded to the European Secretariat of the Cabinet Office and involved in both the aftermath of the negotiations on the Maastricht Treaty and the UK EU Presidency in 1992.
Sir Stewart spent the academic year 1993/94 as a Fellow of the Centre for International Affairs of Harvard University. His research paper on the impact of new information systems on Foreign Ministries was published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
From October 1994 Sir Stewart served as Counsellor and Head of the Political Section of the UK Delegations to NATO and the Western European Union in Brussels, where he worked on European Defence issues, the enlargement of NATO, and the Alliance’s outreach to the East. In September 1997 he returned to the FCO on promotion as Director (Conferences), with responsibility for coordinating the arrangements for the four major Summit Conferences held in the UK between October 1997 and June 1998. This involved managing a budget of around £40 million and supervising the work of three event management companies.
In September 1998 Sir Stewart was appointed Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, with the personal rank of Ambassador. He was made a CMG in the 1999 New Year’s Honours List. He worked on a variety of international issues, including the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001.
After leaving the UK Mission in September 2002, Sir Stewart spent three months as a Visiting Fellow at Yale University. His work there on East Timor (on which he was personally involved during his time at the UN) forms part of a book on the UN Security Council published by the International Peace Academy in New York in early 2004.
Sir Stewart was appointed British Ambassador to Ireland in April 2003 at a time of increasingly good relations between the Irish Republic and the UK. During his tenure the Republic became both the UK’s fourth largest overseas market and the fourth largest inward investor. Sir Stewart also worked on Northern Ireland and took part in a number of initiatives to encourage cross-border reconciliation and economic co-operation. In 2006 he participated in both the parade marking the 90th Anniversary of the Easter Rising and the Irish Government’s first official commemoration of the Battle of The Somme.
In August 2006 Sir Stewart was appointed UK Permanent Representative to NATO. He worked with two Secretaries General on a variety of issues, including operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, the Defence Transformation of the Alliance, relations with Russia, Ukraine and Georgia and the drafting of a new Strategic Concept. He was knighted in the summer of 2009, and retired from the Diplomatic Service in March 2010.
Sir Stewart is now a Senior Adviser on Defence and Security Issues to Transparency International (an NGO that works against Corruption), and a Subject Matter Expert on counter-corruption issues for NATO. He has also been appointed an Independent Member of the Parole Board for England & Wales and is a member of a panel of former Ambassadors that offers mediation, training and negotiation services under the auspices of the ADR Group. He is an accredited Commercial Mediator.
Sir Stewart married Christine Mason in January 1978. They have two children: a daughter (1982) and a son (1985).
