Eliza Mannnigham-Buller taught for three years before joining the Security Service (MI5) in 1974. During her 33-year career she was part of the team that uncovered the colleague who offered to work of the Soviet Union, led the Service’s investigation of the Lockerbie bombing and was the senior liaison officer to the US intelligence community in Washington. On her return to London, she established a new section to assume from the Metropolitan Police responsibility for intelligence in Irish republican terrorism in mainland GB. At Board level she was responsible in turn for technical operations and surveillance, Irish terrorism, IT and finance. She because Deputy Director-General, in charge of operations in 1997. From 2002-7, she was Director-General during which time the Service almost doubled in size in response to the threat from Islamist terrorism.
In 2008, she joined both the Lords, as a crossbench peer, and the board of the Wellcome Trust. In 2009, she became a member of the Council of Imperial College and was appointed chair, 2011 – 2015. From 2015 – 21, she was chair of the Wellcome Trust. In the Lords, she has twice served on both the Science and Technology Committee and as chair of the committee dealing with the Lords’ conduct. She currently chairs a select committee on Social Mobility. She was a co-president of Chatham House for a decade and is a member of two Royal Society Boards.
She gave the Reith Lectures in 2011 and was appointed by the King as Chancellor of the Order of the Garter in 2024.
