Jeremy Greenstock is the Director of the Ditchley Foundation, the Conference Centre in Oxfordshire which focuses on international policy issues of particular interest to the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.   

Born in 1943, Sir Jeremy was educated at Harrow School and Worcester College, Oxford.   His principal career was with the British Diplomatic Service, ending his career as UK Permanent Representative at the United Nations in New York (1998-2003) and then, after a suspension of his retirement, as the UK Special Envoy for Iraq (September 2003-March 2004). 

After three years as an Assistant Master at Eton College, he joined the Diplomatic Service in 1969.   The two themes of his career were the Middle East and US/Western European Relations.  He studied Arabic at the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies, Lebanon (1970-72) and went on to serve in Dubai and Saudi Arabia in the early 1970s and mid 1980s respectively.  From 1974-1978 he was Private Secretary to Ambassadors Peter Ramsbotham and Peter Jay in the British Embassy in Washington, starting a total of ten years spent in Washington and New York on US and Transatlantic business. 

After a spell as Political Counsellor in Paris (1987-90), Sir Jeremy came back to London as Director for Western and Southern Europe, the foundation for a number of years’ work on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and in particular on the Balkans, Cyprus and Gibraltar.  He returned to Washington as Minister (Deputy Ambassador) in 1994-95, and was then brought back to London as Director General for Eastern Europe and the Middle East (1995) and then Political Director (1996-98). After chairing the EU Political Committee during the UK Presidency in the first half of 1998, he moved to New York as UK Ambassador to the UN in July 1998. 

Sir Jeremy took up his position as Director of the Ditchley Foundation in August 2004.  He also works as a Special Adviser to the BP Group, is a Non-Executive Director of De La Rue and a Trustee of the International Rescue Committee (UK).   He is married with three grown-up children.