Jonathan Powell was Chief of Staff to Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007 and the chief British government negotiator on Northern Ireland during that time.
Before that, Jonathan served as a British diplomat from 1979 to 1996, working on the negotiations to return Hong Kong to China in the early 1980s, the CSCE human rights talks, CDE arms control talks with the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, and the ‘Two plus Four’ talks on German reunification in the late 1980s.
Jonathan founded Inter Mediate in 2011 to share lessons from the Northern Ireland peace talks and help other leaders navigating similar dilemmas.
In Inter Mediate’s first decade, Jonathan played a central role in securing three major peace agreements, including: supporting Colombia’s President Santos in his Nobel Prize-winning accord with the FARC; helping Mozambique’s President Nyusi reach a demobilisation agreement with RENAMO after decades of destructive civil war; and in Spain, ending the ETA’s fifty-year campaign of violence. These agreements have saved thousands of lives and eased humanitarian suffering for millions.
Jonathan now serves as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s National Security Advisor, coordinating all UK foreign policy, security, defence, Europe, and international economic issues from 10 Downing Street.