James Sharp Email & Phone Number

Baku, Azerbaijan

Leading the UK effort in a country where British firms are the largest investors, with BP to the fore. Our role also involves working with the government to support European energy security, while developing commercial opportunities in the non-oil sector. Collaboration on security, defence and international policy are also key interests, as is education.

London, England, United Kingdom

Key member of cross-Government approach to tackling European irregular migration crisis; and chair of EU migration dialogue with Horn of Africa countries. Irregular migration was one of the biggest and most sensitive issues the EU dealt with during this period, with obvious read-across to the role of migration in the Brexit process, and required a.

London, England, United Kingdom

Head of FCO Migration Directorate, leading on all migration and visa issues for FCO. Some of this involved representing Foreign Office views in cross-Government negotiations on changes to the UK’s migration and visa policies at a time the government was committed to reducing net migration to “tens of thousands”; other aspects of the role included support.

London, England, United Kingdom

Led on complex arms export applications

Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

Responsible for UK government’s visa and migration operations in Asia Pacific. The role involved leading an international customer service business (500,000 customers per year; revenues of £65m) through major policy and operational change, while delivering significant improvements to the quality of the service. I transformed the network, moving from 18.

London, England, United Kingdom

Responsible for Gibraltar; UK relations with Spain/Italy/Portugal; and FCO lead on EU Justice and Home Affairs. A key achievement was the 2006 Cordoba Agreement, the most extensive agreement between the UK and Spain on Gibraltar for several hundred years. Both its negotiation and implementation demanded significant engagement with the governments of both.

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Supporting UK business in a country that was starting to see the benefits of its oil resources; encouraging further economic and political reforms; working with the government on international policy issues post-9/11 attacks; and expanding the UK presence through opening offices in the capital Astana and main oil town Atyrau. I was also non-resident.

London, England, United Kingdom

FCO lead on UK policy on nuclear weapons, missile defence, conventional arms control

London, England, United Kingdom

Vienna, Austria

UK lead on former Yugoslavia and former Soviet Union