Summary

Men can be powerful forces when it comes to creating an equal playing field for women. From creating safe environments for women to speak up, to educating colleagues, to kicking down the doors that allow the real and needed work to happen, there are many roles a man can play. Learn from Rear Admiral Jim Macleod on how he has empowered his team to drive positive changes for gender diversity in the British Military and how this is lifting the entire organization.

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Read the Show Notes Here: Male Allies: Their Role In Cracking The Ceiling

Welcome back Leading Ladies. And we are here today with one of our first few male guests. And so I’m really excited about this moment, because I’ve always said that if we want to make a difference for women, we need men with us on this journey. And today we actually have Rear Admiral Jim McCloud joining us. He’s a member of the British Royal Navy having joined in 1989 as a weapon engineer officer; he moved away from engineering in the Noughties, which to the Americans listeners is the early 2000’s – I know you get a real kick when Brits say the word naughty. He then moved on to work in defense policy and did an operational tour in Baghdad before moving into strategic HR. Initially he was the head of armed forces renumeration before rising to rear Admiral as assistant Chief of Defense Staff, responsible for military workforce capability. He’s been leading a team that’s making a big difference for gender diversity in the military and was awarded a Women in Defense team award this year for the great work that he and the team is doing. And today is actually being a real champ, he is recovering from COVID, but he’s still here to be with us. That’s how important this cause is to Jim. Welcome, Jim.

It’s fantastic to be here. Thank you for such a very kind introduction.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, a real Admiral says to me, ‘I would like to be on your podcast.’ It’s given me all kinds of credibility this past week with my friends. I’m like, ‘I’m interviewing a rear Admiral on Friday!’ And Jim, I actually started getting to know you after the Leading Ladies Of… Defense conference back in March, because you joined us at the after-party and I remember you really, really wanted to speak and you made sure that my assistant tapped me on the shoulder to say that you wanted to share. And you made some really, really excellent points and the passion that you brought, I was like, ‘this is someone that we need to be listened to because I think he could teach both men and women a lot.’

Thanks very much. I don’t remember tapping your assistant on the shoulder to say I really, really want to speak, but I am really passionate about this subject, so I’m really glad that we did meet at that that conference, it was a fascinating event, and it was really great to be part of it. And I’m really, really pleased that we connected afterwards so we can have these conversations. Because like you are, I am a big believer in this movement. And I think there’s something, there’s a lot of work that men like I can do with allies, to make things better for women in the military, women in defense. And I’m really, really pleased to talk about that with you today.

 

I could not agree more. Well, if you’ve been listening to my previous podcasts, you’ll know that the first question that I always ask is what are your thoughts on the glass ceiling, does it still exist?

My thoughts on the glass ceiling… I’m clearly talking about this from the UK military perspective, my own personal insights, and my own personal views on it. I think it does. I know it does. I think the thing about the glass ceiling is you can’t see it when you’re stood on it, and you can’t see when you’re looking up through it. And I think that’s really important and one of the biggest insights I’ve had about the glass ceiling. Getting people to understand that the glass ceiling exists is probably the biggest part of the battle. And that’s both down the chain of command and those people at the very highest levels. And I think the other thing that this work that we’ve been doing has really shown me is it’s not a simple problem. If it was just here’s a chisel just smash the glass ceiling, we would have fixed it by now, cleverer people than you and I would’ve made it all right. And I think it’s the huge complexity that sits around this subject, which all makes it really fascinating to me, but too, I think is why it really needs a lot of different people to be thinking about it, to, to get rid of this glass ceiling.

 

I agree.  I mean, we’ve been chipping away at it for decades and I consider myself one of those women who’s broken through the glass ceiling, but I still am, I still bear the scars of it. And I feel sometimes how people throw shards of glass at me, or I run into a new glass ceiling. So I do, I do agree with you, it’s very, very complex. So as you mentioned, it’s that you can’t see it when you, you know, the glass is clear. So, when did you first notice that?

So I’ve always had a real interest in diversity of thought, and that’s what brought me into this subject. I joined the Navy, as you said, in my introduction in 1989.  I joined a very, very different Navy to the Navy of today. And when I joined, they sent me to elocution lessons. I knew your viewers will see it clearly made no difference whatsoever to me, But I joined the Navy when that was what was happening. And throughout my career, what I’ve realized is that we live in a world where everything’s really complicated. And then we solve complex problems by having a diverse group of people around the table. My experience with the military is it works best when it’s got diverse people.  As I’ve become more senior, and I’ve been leading more diverse teams it’s amazed me that we don’t have a fair proportion of women in those teams. What is the simplest way to bring diversity forward is to get 50% of the population in the conversation. And we just weren’t doing that. So I started to get really interested in how do we make diverse decision-making, how do we get people in the conversation? And what I found was when I started chatting to the women that worked for me – I wanted to understand why did they believe that there was a problem, why where they underrepresented? And whenever I quickly realized, I didn’t actually understand the problems that women were facing. But what I did know, and I remember this conversation very well with a junior officer, who’d done some amazing things in the diversity space was she knew what needed doing but didn’t have the ability to go away and do it. I didn’t know what needed doing, but as a senior officer, I had the ability to go away and make things happen.

 

So when you say ability – sorry to interrupt you – when you say ability you mean like she was capable of doing it, but she didn’t necessarily have the authority?

Absolutely. I mean, she was way more capable than I am. She didn’t have the budget. She didn’t have the understanding of how defence functions, she didn’t have the contacts and the network that I have. She didn’t have the experience of how to make things different.  And a lot of the things that that she was explaining to me, I just was completely oblivious to it. And I hadn’t really even thought about them. And if I kind of give you one little story, we have in the Royal Navy on our warships signs everywhere.  but there’s a really traditional sign that says officers and duty men only. And it’s around where the accommodation is for officers.  I’ve grown up with that and never thought anything of it. And she mentioned it to me saying officers and duty men. And my first response was, ‘oh, here we go again, you know it’s traditional level language.’ And then I thought about it and caught myself. And I thought, yeah, actually, you know, if I am surrounded by terminology, which is denying my existence with man overboard drills, officers and duty men, duty seamen, and all of these different words, then I can understand why it starts to impact. So it was that eyes opening in those conversations that made me realize that, you know, we probably can do something about this.

I love that. I love that. And I love how you turned that; it’s not about people nagging and being petty. It’s denying our existence. I have a funny story, I used to fly in a lot for work into Orange County and I’d go and pick up my rental car from – I’m not going to name which company it was – and every time I went in there, they had a board on the wall, and it said chairman’s club. CHAIRMANS CLUB! And so it really bothered me. And so one time I just stopped the manager. And I said, that says, chairman’s club. Do you know that there are women that actually chair companies? And so actually the next time I flew in, they had taken it down and I really liked that small victory. And I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s, you know, manpower, and this and that. And there’s this very, very masculine language, both in business and the military. And we do notice it and even, even women will fall into it. I mean, for me personally, for the longest time, whenever anybody said CEO, president, I would automatically assume it was a man, just automatically. And so I respond with, ‘okay, what time is he going to be here? And it took me a long time to, to check that way of thinking and transform that. So it’s not just something that men do. It’s something that we all do as a society. So it’s not us blaming men. It’s just, just pointing out, hey, these norms need to change.

Yeah. And I absolutely agree with that. One of the things that I, I made a real point of when I meet new staff and I talk about my values and what matters to me and what doesn’t. And I, and I talk to them about diversity and gender and, and the importance of people being called out when they get it wrong. And that includes me. And if I use the wrong language, and the example I use is I’ve got 33 years of military experience and my neurons are wired a certain way. And if I start and I get on a roll, it’s very easy for me to use language that’s pre-programmed into my head. I don’t continue doing that until somebody stops me. What I’ve done is I’ve given permission for my staff to say, ‘hold on, Admiral is that what you really meant?’ And of course it isn’t what I meant. And I can then say, no, that’s not what I meant. And what that’s doing is it’s helping me because my brain is getting it right, but more importantly, it’s sending a message out to everybody that works for me and everybody around me that people like I need to change. And then I’m role modeling the types of responsible leadership that I believe people should have in the future. And, and I think the second order issue to that is it gives people permission to challenge. And it gives people that psychological safety to say, ‘I don’t think that’s right.’ And that’s so powerful; and it sounds like a trivial example and use of gendered language, but if you can get that into everything that you do, if people have the psychological safety to challenge, then you have such a better organization. And I’ve seen that you mentioned the working group that we set up and a lady called, I mentioned it already, but Karen Barnicoat ran it, a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy. And she, one of the things that she says from the work that she did was, having the psychological safety to go out and make a difference was the most powerful thing to allow her and the team to make a difference. And I think we’ve talked about allies and that’s one of the great things that people like me can do. We can create that, that space for people to Excel. I can hold space and allow people to go and do things. And we can talk in detail about what those things were. But I talk about like, I did lots of work. My job was really easy. I always say I was at the front of the queue. I kicked the door in and held the door open. and then everybody else ran in and did all the work. But I was the only one who had the authority at the time to hold a foot in the door.

I love that. I love that. And you’ve just made me realize I did not announce the theme of today’s podcast, which is the role of male allies in cracking the glass ceiling. Oops! So yeah, I, I really love some of the things that you’re saying there, I’m kind of getting so excited, I’m actually forgetting some of it. But I think, I think what I’m hearing is giving people permission to speak out makes a huge difference. And I really liked that because I once worked for a company where they used to say things like, when there was a problem, they would say, ‘oh, well, we’re already pregnant with it away.’ You know, ‘throw the baby out with the bath water. And, and one of them, one of the worst things that I thought they would always say was, ‘just between us girls,’ because that implies, you know, well, this is gossiping, you know, just between us girls. And I, and I actually went and said something, and I actually said something to a woman. And she was like, ‘no, no, no, they don’t mean anything.’  And a couple of people, you know, shut me down. And I think this is quite common for a lot of people. Another one, this is awful, they’d say, ‘we’ve been caught with our knickers down,’ and I’m like, ‘oh my God, in the UK, do you know what nickers means? please don’t say that.’ And so you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t believe the amount of language out there that can be, like, in some ways triggering. And what I love about, about what you said, like you said, that they would ask you the question, ‘is that what you really meant, is that what you really meant?’ I LOVE that because that is such a clear non-aggressive question. And I think in some cases, people from marginalized groups have been so shoved down, you know, we’re angry. I mean, I’ve been angry. And, and one of the things I’m very conscious of is the no shame, no blame approach. Because if you do, if you do go at it angry, if you want to change things from an angry place, it’s a lot harder to change it. And you giving permission, has allowed the other person to speak with integrity and compassion to those that need to learn.

Yeah, no, I think that’s very, I think that’s very true. And I’d just like to, to distance myself from some of your comments about pants and other things as a member of the military, we wouldn’t comment on things like that. But I think one of the key things that we learned on this journey and, and that I’ve learned is as an ally, and I’m really proud to, to consider myself an ally, I think that’s really important. One of the key things that that we’ve learned and, and your, your listeners and viewers will not be surprised by this, this is a statement of the obvious. This is a really, really complicated problem, and there are no silver bullets that are going to fix it. And I’m in an organization which can sometimes get a little bit carried away with firing silver bullets of problems. And I often joke about how I can be tripping over the shell casings or silver bullets that have been fired. And what we learn, you mentioned in my biography I’m systems engineer by background, and I love that kind of people systems thinking process to things like this. And, and the team went away when we were looking at, ‘okay, how do we increase gender diversity in the military? What do we need to do? What’s prevented it?’ And we went away, and we looked at what’s been happening in the states, what’s been happening in Australia who were doing very well on this, some of the European countries, we went to industry. We pulled all that together, and we pulled together the experience of the women in defence, in the UK. And we looked at it and analyzed it. And, and we realized that there were a number of key things that we needed to do. We needed to change the policies to make people stay, to retain people, because we didn’t have family friendly policies. We needed to do things in the recruitment space because we really weren’t getting the right people through the door.  We needed to do things about talent management. We can talk about talent management and mentoring and sponsorship.  But the BIG thing that we found was we needed to change the culture and the environment in which the women were operating. And that came across really, really strongly. And we did quite a bit of work on allies workshops, and ‘how do we work in that space? How do we help to improve the understanding of predominantly male leaders, at every level?’ And it’s been fascinating. And whilst I said there are no silver bullets, it’s the closest thing we’ve got to it. And I say that because one of the things that I’ve found is people that started to trust me, women have started to trust me that I’m not just doing this because I have a tick in my annual report that says I need to have done something that’s diversity and inclusivity. They actually trust me.

 

Why do you care so much?

Why do I care so much? That’s a really interesting question. Even just asking me that question, I can feel an emotional response to it.  I really do care; I can feel it in my voice. I can feel it, you know, as I spoke, but why is that? I think because I really care about the organization that I’m part of. I know I want the organization to succeed. As a military, we’re here to protect society and I want the military to represent that society it’s excepted to protect. So that’s really important to me and, you know, it’s our business, the business of military and security is complex, it’s getting more and more complex, and we’re only going to solve those difficult wicked problem if we have everybody around the table and have all the different viewpoints. And as we were saying earlier on in our chat, we should make sure we’ve got 50% of the population, or as good as we can, around the table when we start to think about how to solve these problems. And that’s just from a business perspective, from a military perspective; that’s beyond the ethical rightness and moral rightness of everybody having an equal opportunity. And I think the equal opportunity piece is really, really key. It’s one of the things that I’ve found – we do a lot of work to remove this – people will say to me, ‘well, everybody’s got an equal opportunity’ and I look, and they do, but they have an equal opportunity against the rules as they currently laid down. And the Royal Navy and British military. We have hundreds and hundreds of years to get processes and systems in place to get exactly the right middle aged white man top of the organization.

 

I love where this conversation is going. I absolutely love it. We’re just going to take one quick moment to do a really short Ad break, and then come back to this exact point. 

 

I’m loving this conversation about, you know, everybody’s got an equal chance, but the structures and the systems are really there to help men. And that’s, that’s actually not just something that is in the military. There’s a really, really great book called Gender Intelligence by Barbara Annis. And it talks about the fact that like in business, you know, a lot of, a lot of the tools or the processes, a lot of the norms, the structures, they’re all traced back to the industrial revolution. And it was mostly men. There were hardly any women there then. And so what Barbara talks about a lot in her work is it’s not about making women behave like men, so they can be successful. It’s about changing the environment so everybody can be successful. And so, yeah, you know, when people talk about systemic problems, you know, we’re not saying like, ‘oh, you’ve got this deep-rooted problem and you and you’re in denial, yada, yada, yada,’ we’re saying that there’s stuff that people aren’t aware of that is naturally holding women back and let’s have those discussions.

Yeah. I couldn’t, I couldn’t agree more. And that’s absolutely what we realized that lots and lots and lots of small things all coming together to create these, these problems, whether that’s policies that haven’t really been thought through recently, or the way in which we make decisions on who goes on a course in their twenties, which subsequently has an impact some 10 years later, which we never really thought about. So we looked at all of the different elements – just so your listeners and viewers don’t think it’s all bad, we did a lot of work looking at gendered language in reports and found out that we don’t have gendered language in reports.  We looked at promotion boards and we found that there’s no gender bias on promotion boards. And our promotion system is incredibly fair. What we have found is there are not enough women getting through to be promoted. So what are we doing about that? And I was touching on earlier about people started to trust me and started to explain some of the problems. It’s been fascinating because sometimes the problems are being caused by people I know really well, and they’re friends of mine. So I ring them and say, you know, blah, blah, blah, can I have a chat. And I said, ‘are you aware…?’ And every single time – it hasn’t happened a lot, but two or three times – and each time the individual concerned has been devastated that their actions are having this impact because they were completely unaware that that was going on, and fixed it there and then, thanked me for the conversation, and went away and did something about it. And that’s hugely reassuring to me that the organization wants to change, but can’t yet see, if it’s the glass ceiling, you can’t see the glass and we’ve run these gender ally workshops where we’ve been getting middle seniority leaders coming in and people who are going  away to command warships, who are really important role models, and we’ve been doing sort of two two hour sessions over, over two week period, and we’ve had some very, very brave young women come along to those sessions and talk about their lived experience. And they’ve been unmitigated successes because what’s happening is people are going out of these workshops are going back into these really important leadership roles with their eyes wide open. And the feedback we’re getting – and I, and I have, I use one of the bottom of my email footer at the moment, I’ve got here and it’s from an individual, he’s done off to command a warship, and he emailed back afterwards. And he said, ‘the biggest takeaway I had, was that there is so much further to go, the majority of which are thins I was probably unaware of.  Lots of these things, areas for improvement are very obvious, but it takes someone to point them out to me.’  And I think that’s so powerful because this is an officer who is going away to command a warship. And all of those people, for them is he’s a role model. He’s now gone out to that ship with a completely different view of the lived experience of women in the military, in the Royal Navy, and will change the way he leads. And one of the things we teach about leadership is a leader needs to change how they lead to get the best out of the people that work for them. They should not change the people that work for them.

 

You’re making me all emotional now.  We’re northerners, we’re supposed to be tough Jim. I just, I love what you’re saying, because I think 90% of the time people are unaware, you know, and this whole thing where, you know, cancel culture and shaming and stuff, you know, that’s not going to help the cause. And for me, being able to have those conversations and the fact that you’ve created an environment where these women can step forward and say, ‘you know, this is actually what’s happening,’ is so important because what happens otherwise is, you know, we don’t feel we can speak up, and it gets shoved down and shoved down and shut down. And what happens when you shut down those feelings, they, eventually, they explode and they may explode verbally, or they may explode by that person just getting up and walking out the door and no longer working for the military or working for that company. And you know, I’ve voted with my feet before and it’s, I just, I’m just, I’m just really emotional right now. I want to cry. I just, I love what you’re saying.

Yeah. And I think it’s really important that what I’m saying is reflected by our chief of staff and our chief of defence staff, and they are hugely committed to this. And we brief them regularly on what we’ve been doing, and they’re pushing really strongly on this lived experience because they too can see how this can fast track the changes. We can change policy, we can change taxonomies, but we have to change that environment within which women are living and working and making things better. And the lived experience where we’ve been doing has been sharing how to do that. And I’m really proud of what the team have achieved. I’m really pleased with the way that this is reflecting the needs, that the direction of our senior leaders by taking that forward.

 

Yeah. And it’s, it’s like – I was going to say a new social contract – but it’s not a new social contract. It’s a new social norm, you know, where like, ‘we’re going to allow you to challenge us on that, and and stuff’s going to be brought to us in a bold, but compassionate way.’ And I just, I think that’s amazing. I really do. I really do. So what else can women do to… sorry, go ahead.

You often get the old guard who will say, ‘oh yeah, but we’re a military fighting service and, and we do dangerous things.’ Of course we do. And there are, there are times at which you have to give an order and you have to expect people to carry that out. And there are times when you don’t need to operate like that. And it’s making sure that we get that right.

and so Angela,

one of the things that that I – I, I’ve spoken to some of the allies workshops – and, and I still give my view and, and I try and tell them this stuff, and I think I’m clever, and the one, the one piece of advice that seems to land was when I tell them that, you know, I’m probably, with the work I’m trying to do in this space, I’m probably wrong, 30 to 40% of the time. And I’m very happy with people pointing out that I’m wrong, and I’m not, I’m no longer afraid of being wrong. Because I’m right more than wrong. And if I’m wrong, I’m doing it, I’m doing it out of the best intentions. And I’m trying to…

 

And that’s courageous leadership, you know, being a courageous leader is being willing to take that feedback, is being willing to be human, is being willing to make those mistakes. And we need more of that. We really do, especially the way the world is right now. And so I really think it’s fantastic that you that you do that.

I just want to be conscious of time, because I know that you are a busy Rear Admiral. So what else can women be doing to work with men to help amplify allyship? What can women be doing to work with men?

It’s a really interesting question, a very difficult question. And thank you for that. And it definitely wasn’t in the list of questions you sent me! I think it depends where the individual is within the hierarchy. And of course the stories that I tell about men not seeing the issues, you know, equally applies to women. There are women out there who. I’m sure you met them and interviewed them, who would basically say, you know, ‘if they just get on and do the job properly, they’ll be treated on their merits.’ And of course everybody’s entitled to their own view. And, and, and from my perspective, that view is totally fine, you know, if they work for me, then it’s my job to make them as good as I can. And, and so I think when women are working in our environment, one of the – and I’m thinking of my feet here – but one of the things that’s been really powerful is when we set up this working group and we connected with other people like you, or some senior people from other industries, it’s that networking that sharing. Because we have individuals who are on their own, we may have air crew, female pilots, or officers on watch on ship, where they are in very minority numbers, and therefore, I think it becomes more difficult to share ideas and share stories. So the networking seems to be really important. The other thing, the thing that we’re doing work on is about sponsorship. And sponsorship can be sort of seen as a double-edged sword. And some people want to talk about sponsorship think that’s about favoritism, that’s about, you know, making sure that your individual gets through the organization.  And it’s not, it couldn’t be further from the truth, and for an organization like ours and again, a lady I worked with told me this story, and she said she was on a ship. And she was one of the senior officers on the ship, she works for captain. Her and the captain were both big runners, but she said, there was no way I could go running with the captain every night because you know, how did that look, and I was always really conscious about how that looks. And that made me, it made me think about those opportunities where, you know, young officers are running with the captain, that informal relationship, that getting to know a little bit more about the individual. So that sponsorship piece, I think is really important. And I think, if I could be bold enough, I think, I think sometimes women need to push themselves a little bit into that space. You know, I can try to create a space where we do more formal sponsorship but be bold in terms of reaching out to senior officers and ask them their advice. With senior military we love to talk, you know, we love to be flattered.

I love that. So that’s, that’s how I built my career at Rolls-Royce. Cause I, I, when I joined, there was two different grad programs, and I didn’t join the leadership one. And then I kind of wish I had. And so I thought, ‘well, you know what, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just get there myself, don’t worry.’ And I used to ring people all the time and be like, ‘Hey, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee in return for your wisdom.’ And they’d be like, ‘Ooh.’ And very, very few people will, will turn you down for half an hour, you know to share some of their experiences to help make you better. So, yeah, I, I totally agree with you. I think I think that is really, really good advice.

Well, I know that we’re at, it’s almost, I time here is almost up. So do you have any parting words for our listeners, Jim

Parting words, that puts me on the spot… so this is one of the, that the work I’ve done on gender and trying to improve our gender diversity in the military is probably one of the highlights of my career in terms of ‘do I feel I’m making a difference?’  Why is that? One, because it’s so important, but, but two, because it’s actually not that difficult. And it just requires, I think, from me a degree of humility, and just to step back, and almost step outside of the box and look in and ask somebody else to step outside the box with me and look in and point out to me what they were seeing – not me tell them what I was seeing, which as a senior officer I’m very good at, but having them tell me, ‘this is how it feels to me, this is what I see, this is what I experience,’ and that I think taught me so, so much. And then I can put my own experience to bring up, ‘right, we can fix this, this is what we can do, right, okay, let’s have a think about it.’  But until someone had taken the time to, to point out the glass ceiling – and it exists at lots of levels, it’s not just, it’s not there.  It’s almost like the invisible man film where you get the spray out and you spray it and say, ‘that’s where it is.’  So if it was a piece of advice, get someone to take you out, get the spray can out and point to you where the invisible issues. Because I think you’d be surprised at how much any of us as male allies can do to make things better.

 

Beautiful, beautiful. I have just loved interviewing you today. I’m so, so pleased about the work that you’re doing. And what I’m hearing is that there’s some great work that is being done in the Navy* and that you were doing which businesses could actually benefit from it. And I can imagine a future of, you know, all these, all these people from the military going out into businesses doing these workshops and teaching them this stuff. Cause, you know, I’m sure there are businesses doing that, but you know, some of the things that you’re doing are applicable everywhere. And I really hope that people that are listening today, you know, they might even tap their boss on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey boss, could you just listen to this podcast? I think it’s really important for you.’ Because I think that your words, Jim, are going to have a huge impact for a lot of women and men around the world. So thank you for being here.

That’s very kind, thank you for inviting me, I’ve really enjoyed it. 

*this was mis-spoken on my part, it was being done for the whole of the UK military, not just the Navy

 

About Jim

Admiral Jim Macleod joined the Royal Navy in 1989 and spent his early career as a Weapon Engineer Officer in frigates and the aircraft carrier HMS ILLUSTRIOUS. Moving away from engineering in the mid noughties, he has worked in Defence Policy, defence equipment and support and completed an operational tour in Baghdad working on strategic infrastructure, before more recently moving into strategic HR. He served as the Head of Armed Forces Remuneration and more lately in the rank of Rear Admiral as the Assistant Chief of Defence Staff Personnel Capability responsible for Military workforce capability.

During his service he has read for an BEng(Hons), MSc in Systems Engineering, an MA in Defence Studies, is an alumni of the 2015 Royal College of Defence Studies course and was appointed CB in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020.

 

He is married to Charlotte and lives in southern England with their young family.

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