Diplomat Adam Thomson

He served as Permanent Representative to NATO between 2014 and 2016.

Sir Adam Thomson KCMG
Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to NATO
In office 2014–2016
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	Dame Mariot Leslie
Succeeded by	Paul Johnston (acting)
British High Commissioner to Pakistan
In office 2010–2014
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	Robert Brinkley
Succeeded by	Philip Barton
Personal details
Spouse	Fariba Shirazi
Children	3

Adam McClure Thomson was educated at King's College School, Cambridge, Westminster School, Trinity College, Cambridge and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1978 and served in Moscow, Brussels, Washington, D.C. and New Delhi as well as at the FCO in London. He was deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, with the rank of Ambassador, 2002–06; Director South Asia & Afghanistan at the FCO 2006–09 and High Commissioner to Pakistan 2010–14 before being appointed Permanent Representative to NATO in 2014.

While in Pakistan, Thomson caused some controversy when he said that the country's government had failed to deliver on reform and called for a "radical change".

Thomson was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2009, and knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 2014 New Year Honours. He has been a member of the Dean's Alumni Leadership Council at Harvard Kennedy School.

Thomson is the eldest son of Sir John Thomson, also a diplomat. He is the grandson of Sir George Paget Thomson and the great-grandson of Sir J. J. Thomson, both winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics. He is married to Fariba Shirazi, a native of Iran who studied architecture in Tehran and art history in London, and has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. They have a son and two daughters.