Ann Lewis CMG

After grammar school and university in Leeds and four years in Finland, Ann joined the Foreign Office.  She spent most of her diplomatic career on the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, serving at Embassies in Moscow (until expelled in 1971 in retaliation for the UK’s expulsion of 105 Russian spies), Helsinki and East Berlin, and on secondment to the Cabinet Office.  A long stint in Eastern European Department (non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries) straddled the events of 1989 and included the invention and early running of the Know-How Fund. She retired as Head of Cultural Relations at the FCO.

Ann is a Founder Governor of The English College in Prague, becoming Deputy Chairman and then Chairman of Governors in 2017.

Since retirement Ann has edited books on the EU’s relations with Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, and two books on the history of the English College. She is also a long-standing Trustee of The BEARR Trust, which supports health and welfare NGOs in the former countries of the Soviet Union.