Alison Kemp comes to FHS!

On Friday 26th February, as part of Francis Holland School's ‘Speaker Programme’, FHS welcomed Alison Kemp, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Montenegro, to give a virtual zoom talk to Sixth Form pupils about her myriad of experiences working for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

As part of FHS’ enrichment Speaker Programme Scheme, Speaker Programme Prefect Pagan Reed reached out to British diplomat and Crown servant Alison Kemp to elucidate her dynamic career working the FCDO, as well as highlighting the arsenal of skills essential for any budding diplomat.

Kemp’s talk touched upon a wide range of topics, the first of which included the historical role of women in the Foreign Office. Beginning with a discussion of the role of women in diplomatic service, Kemp highlighted the evolution of the Foreign Office’s gender imbalance and how women’s roles in the Foreign Office have progressed to the modern day.

Indeed, in her talk Kemp spoke of the significant obstacles women women have faced in their attempts to establish a career for themselves in the Foreign Office. Up until the beginning of the 20th Century women lacked representation within the diplomatic service, and furthermore it was only until 1972 that women were able to remain working for the Foreign Office after they got married. However, as stated by Kemp, ‘there is currently a huge emphasis in the Foreign Office in making sure that we represent the country.’

This progress has been evidenced by the numerous ambassadorial roles assumed in recent years by women; the UK’s ambassadors to the United States, United Nations, China and Moscow are all women. In addition, Kemp drew particular attention to the Foreign Office’s work in image and diversity, in embracing more representation for, ‘all races [and] people of all kinds of ability.’ As further stated by Kemp, ‘the typical image of a British Ambassador or British Diplomat as a white man from a certain background is no longer true by any stretch of the imagination.’

Having first joined the Foreign Office in 1998, Kemp’s talk also touched upon particular career highlights, including her extensive work and numerous missions undertaken across the war-torn world. Kemp made mention of her first-hand experiences of working in a diplomatic capacity in a whole range of different nations, including Sri Lanka, Liberia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. As stated by Kemp herself, ‘I wanted job where I would see the world and meet interesting people, and I have absolutely done that in spades.’

In being a diplomat, one of the key motivators in propelling Kemp’s career was attempting to make the world a better, safer and fairer place. When working as Consulate General in Northern Iraq to the Kurds, following the 2003 Iraq War, Kemp had the dual responsibility of balancing the UK’s interests in democracy with the UK’s interests in Iraq staying together. Throughout her talk Kemp interwove her experiences of working in particularly sensitive situations with the key traits needed of any diplomat, to evidence the plethora of skills required to overcome disagreement, instability and conflict.

In discussing her work and responsibilities during her time as Deputy Ambassador in Yemen, Kemp both stressed the need for succinct communication, sensitivity and a focus on pursuing commonality of interests. Braving numerous security threats, Kemp and her team worked on providing both development aid and humanitarian aid to rebuild much of Yemen’s wiped-out infrastructure and ensure those affected by conflict were provided with proper assistance.

In the last segment of her talk, Kemp shared some of her insights on her promotion to the position of Ambassador to Montenegro in 2017, as well as the unique challenges both Brexit and COVID-19 have posed to cross-nation diplomatic work in the Foreign Office. The talk rounded off with FHS girls being invited to participate in a rigorous Q&A session, in which Kemp was quizzed on her typical day-to-day schedule as an Ambassador, her favourite aspects of diplomatic service and how British world history continues to shape the work of the Foreign Office to date.

The presentation ended with FHS thanking Kemp for a throughly illumniating, interesting and thought-provoking talk.