Baroness Ashton

Baroness Ashton GCMG PC served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

She was created a Life Peer in 1999 and became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006.

Baroness Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and became the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

Amongst other current roles , she is a Distinguished Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC; a senior advisor to HD, the humanitarian dialogue organization based in Geneva, Chair of the Advisory Council of the Institute for Global Negotiation at Zurich University and Chancellor of Warwick University.  She is Chancellor of the Order of St Michael and St George.