Permanent Under-Secretary, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

Policy Leaders Fellow Alumna, Centre for Science and Policy

Lindy Cameron CB OBE is Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

Previously, Lindy Cameron was British High Commissioner to the Republic of India (2024 to 2026) and CEO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (2020 to 2024). This followed more than two decades of international development and national security policy and crisis management. Before that she served as Director-General in the Northern Ireland Office (2019 to 2020) and as Director General Country Programmes at the Department for International Development (2016 to 2019).

Lindy is from Northern Ireland. After starting her career in the private sector, she joined the Department for International Development (DFID) in 1998, working as an adviser in Nigeria, Vietnam and the Balkans, before moving on to run DFID’s offices in Baghdad and Kabul. She led DFID humanitarian, conflict and Middle East policy after the Arab Spring. She has worked across government: for the Cabinet Office during the financial crisis; for the Foreign Office as the Head of the Provincial Reconstruction team in Helmand, Afghanistan; with the Ministry of Defence on their senior staff courses, and as head of the joint cross-government Stabilisation Unit.