BP appoints Britain’s former chief spy to company’s board

RAKTEEM KATAKEY

LONDON (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, the former state-owned oil company with operations from Russia to Iraq, appointed the former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service as a board member.

John Sawers was chief of MI6, as the service is known, for five years until November 2014. He spent 36 years working for the British government in international affairs and security, including in Iraq, Egypt, South Africa and the U.S., BP said in a statement on Thursday.

Sawers will bring geopolitical and intelligence expertise from his roles in the Middle East, the region where BP has worked since its inception at the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. in 1908. He’s not the first senior intelligence officer to join BP. Mark Allen, a former deputy chief at MI6 and a Libya expert, joined BP as an adviser in 2004.

“John brings extensive experience of international affairs and geopolitics,” BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said in the statement.

Other MI6 bosses have also moved into business. John Scarlett, a 38-year career spy who ran the intelligence service between 2004 and 2009, is an advisor to Morgan Stanley. Richard Dearlove, MI6 chief between 1999 and 2004, is non-executive chairman of Ascot Underwriting, an insurance syndicate a Lloyd’s of London.

The London-based company also appointed Paula Rosput Reynolds, former president and CEO of AGL Resources Inc. to the board.