Joanne Adamson OBE

Biography

Joanne Adamson OBE (Known as Jo)

HM Ambassador, Bamako, Mali since August 2014

Ms Adamson joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1989. She has served in Cairo, Jerusalem, at the UK Mission to the UN in New York, Washington, and at the UK Mission to the UN in Geneva. In addition to being the UK’s Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament from 2011-2013, she was the UK’s Chief Negotiator at the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty diplomatic conferences in 2012 and 2013.

Ms Adamson worked in the Security Policy Department of the FCO from 1989-1990, in the Middle East Department from 1995-1997 and in Counter Proliferation Department from 2007-2009. She took unpaid leave to work for the United Nations in Gaza, Kosovo, and New York from 1999 to 2002, and received a Masters Degree in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in May 2014.

She speaks fluent Arabic and French, and some Hebrew and Spanish.