Speaker Details
Martin Donnelly
Acting Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Government
Martin Donnelly joined the UK Treasury in 1980 and in 1982 became Private Secretary to the Financial Secretary. In 1983-84 he studied at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris. After working on European Community issues in the Treasury, in 1988 he became Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In 1989 Mr Donnelly went to Brussels as a member of the personal staff of Leon Brittan, European Commission Vice President, and was responsible for work to set up the European internal market in financial services. In 1993 he led the Treasury team controlling defence spending. In 1995 he went on secondment to the French Finance Ministry, working on monetary issues and government debt. He returned to the Treasury in 1996 leading a team on European financial and monetary policy. Between 1998 and 2003 Mr Donnelly was Deputy Head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat, coordinating the Government's European policies, and leading work on the Lisbon Agenda of European economic reform. In 2003 he became the Policy Director of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office, responsible for asylum and immigration. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Board in March 2004 as Director-General, Europe and Globalisation. He was G8 Foreign Affairs Sherpa for four years and led FCO negotiations at the Gleneagles G8 Summit. In 2008-09 he went on secondment to UK telecoms regulator Ofcom as Senior International Partner. In autumn 2009 he led the Cabinet Office review which produced the Smarter Government report. He returned to the FCO as Director-General, Strategic Finance. Mr Donnelly studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford and international economics at the College of Europe, Bruges.
