Bob Peirce - Foreign Office Career

Foreign Office Career

After joining the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1977, Bob worked in a number of key positions. He served in Hong Kong (from 1979-80, then as Deputy Political Advisor from 1986-89 and finally as Political Advisor to the Governor from 1993-97), in Peking (1980-83), at the FCO in London (1983-85), and in the Cabinet Office (1985-86). He was Private Secretary to three Secretaries of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs between 1988 and 1990. He served at the UK Mission to the UN from 1990-93, where his work focused on Security Council issues, including Namibia, Cambodia, South Africa, Angola, Yugoslavia, Cyprus and many others. In 1990, he was engaged by the UK's Overseas Development Administration (the predecessor to the Department for International Development) to serve as a consultant to the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, on the organization of the Ugandan State House bureaucracy. Bob was posted to the Royal College of Defense Studies in 1998 until becoming Secretary of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland later that year. He left the Commission in 1999 and became Counselor (Press & Public Affairs) at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. In 2005, he was appointed Consul-General in Los Angeles, with responsibility for a geographical region with a larger population than many countries.