President-elect

Published on
Tuesday 24 January 2017
Category
College & Community

Mr Hitchens says, “I am absolutely delighted to join Wolfson as President, building on Hermione Lee's outstanding term in office. I am committed to the college's international and egalitarian ethic, and would hope to work with everyone at the college, with those who have been at the college, and with the University itself  to keep Wolfson and Oxford the world-beating institutions they deservedly are.”

Tim Hitchens is Director-General, Economic and Consular at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and has over thirty years of experience as a diplomat, which have taken him to parts of the world as diverse as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and France. He has spent three years as Foreign and Commonwealth Office director for Africa, and most recently four years as British Ambassador to Tokyo. He will take up the Presidency of Wolfson College in early summer 2018.

Professor Dame Hermione Lee, President, says: “I am delighted that Tim Hitchens, CMG LVO, is to be the next President of Wolfson College. Tim's enormously distinguished career in diplomacy, most recently as Ambassador to Japan and currently as Director General, Economic and Consular to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, brings great lustre and distinction to the College, and to Oxford. His knowledge of and experience of Asia, Africa and Europe, his wide range of interests (including Japanese poetry) and his unparalleled experience in international negotiation and the management of major institutions and networks, will enhance and add to Wolfson College's international, interdisciplinary, humane and egalitarian environment. I welcome his appointment with great enthusiasm and excitement, and I know that the College will have a splendid future under his Presidency.”