Home World MI6 gets its first female chief, years after Judi Dench played Bond's...

MI6 gets its first female chief, years after Judi Dench played Bond’s boss

A general view of the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, in London.

A general view of the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, in London. Kin Cheung/AP hide caption

toggle caption

Kin Cheung/AP

LONDON — Q is becoming C.

The head of technology and innovation at Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency — the real-life equivalent of James Bond’s gadget-master Q — has been promoted to the country’s top spy job.

And for the first time in the agency’s 116-year history, the MI6 chief — codename C — will be a woman.

It’s a milestone that’s already happened on the silver screen, when Judi Dench played the MI6 chief in several Bond films. (Though her character was known as M, rather than C.)

Now, real life is catching up with fiction. In a statement late Sunday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that Blaise Metreweli — the first-ever female MI6 chief — will assume her new role in the autumn, succeeding Richard Moore, who is retiring.

Sponsor Message

Metreweli, 47, said she was “proud and honored.”

C is the only publicly-named position at MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service. The agency handles covert overseas intelligence-gathering, and is thought to manage a global network of spies. It’s roughly the British equivalent of America’s CIA.

“I look forward to continuing that work alongside the brave officers and agents of MI6 and our many international partners,” Metreweli said, according to a statement from Starmer’s office.

This undated image released by the United Kingdom Foreign Office shows new MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli.

This undated image released by the United Kingdom Foreign Office shows new MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli. AP/United Kingdom Foreign Office hide caption

toggle caption

AP/United Kingdom Foreign Office

She’s a career intelligence officer. Metreweli joined government service in 1999, and previously held director-level roles in MI6’s domestic sister agency, MI5. She has spent most of her career in the Middle East and Europe.

While at MI5 in 2021, she gave an anonymous interview under the pseudonym Director K in which she warned British espionage laws were out of date, and likened Vladimir Putin’s Russia to an “unpredictable storm.”

As Q at MI6, Metreweli was in charge of keeping secret the identities of British spies around the world, and coming up with new ways of evading adversaries, including China’s biometric surveillance.

She takes over at a time when MI6 and the U.K. overall face unprecedented challenges from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, and from non-state entities like the Houthis in Yemen, and al-Qaeda.

“The United Kingdom is facing threats on an unprecedented scale — be it aggressors who send their spy ships to our waters or hackers whose sophisticated cyber plots seek to disrupt our public services,” Starmer said in the statement from his office.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Must Read

An Australian woman is found guilty of murdering her in-laws by toxic mushrooms

Erin Patterson pictured outside her home in Leongatha, Australia, in 2023. That year, four people became seriously ill — and three of them died — after eating a meal she cooked containing death cap mushrooms. Jason Edwards/Newspix via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jason Edwards/Newspix via Getty Images After nearly two years and a

Knives, bullets and thieves: the quest for food in Gaza

Palestinians walk back, carrying parcels collected from a food aid distribution point set up by the privately run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on the Salaheddin road, at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 24, 2025. Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images Editor's

Dalai Lama, a global symbol of Tibetan culture and resistance, turns 90

Actor Richard Gere, right, kisses the hand of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at an event celebrating the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday in Dharamshala, India, Sunday. Ashwini Bhatia/AP hide caption toggle caption Ashwini Bhatia/AP DHARAMSHALA, India — The Dalai Lama turned 90 on Sunday surrounded by thousands of followers, who thronged the Himalayan town

Iran’s supreme leader makes first public appearance since Iran-Israel war started

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a mourning ceremony commemorating the death anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP hide caption toggle caption Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday made his first public appearance since the

How this long-lost Chinese typewriter from the 1940s changed modern computing

The MingKwai typewriter's keys enable the typist to find and retrieve Chinese characters. Elisabeth von Boch/Stanford hide caption toggle caption Elisabeth von Boch/Stanford STANFORD, California — Scholars in the U.S., Taiwan and China are buzzing about the discovery of an old typewriter, because the long-lost machine is part of the origin story of modern Chinese