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Anne Keast-Butler is the Director of GCHQ, the UK's Intelligence, Cyber and Security Agency. Appointed in May 2023,[1][2][3] she is the seventeenth person to hold the role and succeeded Sir Jeremy Fleming.[1]
Keast-Butler joined GCHQ from MI5, where she was Deputy Director General, responsible for MI5's operational, investigative and protective security work. This has included MI5's – and the allies' – preparation for and response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[2]
In her previous Director General role, Keast-Butler was Director General Strategy, leading the enabling functions that support MI5’s operational activities.[1]
Prior to this, Keast-Butler spent two years on secondment to GCHQ as Head of Counter Terrorism and Serious Organised Crime and has also spent part of the last decade on secondment in Whitehall.[2] Whilst there, she helped to launch the National Cyber Security Programme.[3]
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Keast-Butler grew up in Cambridge. Her father was a consultant ophthalmologist with academic roles at the University of Cambridge.[4] She earned a degree in mathematics from Merton College, Oxford.[2]
She is married, with three children.[2]
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