David Warren (diplomat)


Sir David Alexander Warren, KCMG is a British diplomat, serving as HM Ambassador to Japan in the period 2008—November 2012. He retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in January 2013, and now serves as chairman of The Japan Society in London.

Biography

Educated at Epsom College and Exeter College, Oxford, Warren joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1975. He studied Japanese in 1977 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Warren dealt with EU/Japan trade and economic relations in the FCO's European Community Department from 1983 to 1986. From 1987 to 1990, he served as Head of the Political Section in the British High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya. He returned to London as the Deputy Head of the FCO's Far Eastern Department from 1990 to 1991. He was seconded to the Cabinet Office for two years from 1991, as the Head of the International Division, dealing among other issues with UK/Japan science and technology co-operation.
Following his second tour of duty in Tokyo, from 1998 to 2000 he was the Head of the FCO's Hong Kong Department. In 2000, he became one of the Directors and senior management team for the new Government trade promotion organisation, British Trade International, later UK Trade and Investment, where he spent the next four years in charge of different aspects of sector and market-oriented international trade development. In 2004, he was appointed Director, Human Resources, for the FCO, and a member of the FCO Board of Management.
Having already been invested Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, Warren was advanced Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 2012 New Year Honours.

Honours