Nic Hailey joined International Alert as Executive Director in September 2021.

Prior to this role, he spent 24 years in the UK Diplomatic Service, most recently as a Director-General at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (responsible for the merger of the FCO and DFID); High Commissioner (i.e. UK Ambassador) to Kenya 2015-19; Africa Director 2013-15; and deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan 2012-13. He previously served in UK embassies in Washington DC, Berlin, and Paris as well as in a range of roles in London.

Nic was educated at a Steiner Waldorf School, Cambridge University, and at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (Paris). He is British and French, married, with two teenage children.