Rodric Braithwaite is a former diplomat and writer who has spent much of his career dealing with Russia, which he visits regularly.
He was born in London in 1932, when his father Warwick was a conductor at Sadler’s Wells Opera. He was educated at Bedales, served as a sergeant in military intelligence in Vienna in 1951-2, studied French and Russian at Cambridge, and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1955. He had postings in Jakarta, Warsaw, Moscow, Rome, Brussels (European Union), and Washington. He was a member of the Sherpa team for the G7 Economic Summits from 1984-8. He was British Ambassador in Moscow from 1988-1992. In 1992-3 he was Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Major and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee .
Since leaving government service, Rodric Braithwaite has been Governor of the English National Opera, Chairman of the Royal Academy of Music, Senior Adviser to Deutsche Bank, and has had a number of business and not-for-profit appointments.
He is currently Chairman of the International Advisory Council of the Moscow School of Political Studies. He was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford in 1972-3, and a Visiting Fellow at the Wilson Centre in Washington for April-June 2005. He is on the governing body of the Ditchley Foundation. He is an Honorary Fellow of Christ’s College Cambridge, and an Honorary Doctor and Professor of Birmingham University. He was knighted in 1988.
