MI6 spy agencies in Great Britain name the first female chef: NPR

London – Q becomes C.

The head of technology and innovation at the Briton Mi6 Foreign Intelligence Agency – the real equivalent of Gadget -Master Q of James Bond – was promoted to the first job of spying in the country.

And for the first time in 116 years of history of the agency, the head of the MI6 – name code C – will be a woman.

This is an important step that has already occurred on the silver screen, when Judi Dench played the head of the MI6 in several Bond films. (Although his character is known as M rather than C.)

Now real life catches fiction. In a statement on Sunday evening, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that Blaise Mereweli – the very first woman chief of the Mi6 – will assume her new role in the fall, succeeding Richard Moore, who retires.

Mereweli, 47, said that she was “proud and honored”.

It is the only publicly appointed position at MI6, also known as Secret Intelligence Service. The agency manages secret intelligence abroad and is supposed to manage a global network of spy. This is roughly the British American CIA equivalent.

“I can’t wait to continue this work alongside the brave officers and agents of the MI6 and our many international partners,” said Mereweli, according to a press release from the Starmer office.

This undated image published by the United Kingdom Office for Foreign Affairs shows the new chief of the Mi6 Blaise Mereweli.

AP / United Kingdom Office for Foreign Affairs

hide

tilting legend

AP / United Kingdom Office for Foreign Affairs

She is a career intelligence officer. Mereweli joined the government service in 1999 and previously occupied roles at the level of the director in the MI6 national sister agency, MI5. She spent most of her career in the Middle East and Europe.

During her stay at MI5 in 2021, she gave an anonymous interview under the director of the pseudonym K in which she warned that the laws on British espionage were obsolete and compared Russia from Vladimir Putin to a “unpredictable storm”.

As q in Mi6, Mereweli was responsible for keeping the identity of British spies in the world secret and offering new ways to avoid adversaries, including biometric surveillance of China.

It takes over at a time when the MI6 and the United Kingdom on the whole are faced with unprecedented challenges of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, and non-states such as Houthis in Yemen and Al-Qaeda.

“The United Kingdom faces threats on an unprecedented scale – whether attackers send their spy ships to our waters or pirates whose cyber sophisticated plots seek to disrupt our public services,” Starmer said in the office of his office.