Sir Matthew Rycroft (1986) appointed KCMG in New Year Honours

Sir Matthew Rycroft (1986) has been appointed Knight Commander of Saint Michael and Saint George in the King’s New Year Honours 2023 for his services to British Diplomacy, Development and Domestic Policy.

Sir Matthew Rycroft CBE was appointed as the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office in March 2020. He was previously Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development from January 2018 to March 2020.

International posts have included British Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2015-2018) and the Chief Operating Officer of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) (2011), when he oversaw the running of the FCO and its network of 270 posts around the world.

Matthew Rycroft joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1989 and served briefly at the UN in Geneva and the NATO desk in London before spending four years in the British Embassy in Paris. In 1995-96, he was head of the political section of Eastern Adriatic Department in the FCO, where he was a member of the British delegation to the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia.

From 2002 to 2004, Sir Matthew was Private Secretary to the Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs, covering all foreign, European, Northern Ireland and defence issues in No10. He received a CBE for this work.