The Council on Geostrategy is guided by an Advisory Board, comprised of eminent persons dedicated to making the United Kingdom, as well as other free and open nations, more united, stronger and greener. Each member has acquired considerable expertise and experience in foreign affairs and international security. Members provide their advice on a voluntary basis and their role may not always indicate agreement with every position taken by the organisation.

Andrew Bowie MP
Member of the Advisory BoardAndrew Bowie is Member of Parliament for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and Parliamentary. Upon leaving school, he joined the Royal Navy in which he served as an officer for three years. From 2018 to 2019, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Theresa May, Prime Minister. He was appointed Vice Chair of the Conservative Party in August 2019 and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Trade in October 2022.

The Hon. George Brandis KC
Member of the Advisory BoardThe Hon. George Brandis KC is Professor at the National Security College at the Australian National University in Canberra. He was educated at the University of Queensland and Magdalen College Oxford, and is a barrister by profession. He served for 18 years in the Australian Senate. He was a Minister in the Governments of John Howard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. His portfolios included Attorney-General and Vice President of the Executive Council under prime ministers Abbott and Turnbull, and Leader of the Government in the Senate. From 2018 to 2022, he was Australia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Kevin Craven
Member of the Advisory BoardKevin Craven is Chief Executive Officer of ADS Group, having served as a member of the ADS Board for three years, including as ADS Vice- President, Defence. Previously, Kevin was Chief Executive Serco UK & Europe comprising six business units including Defence, Transport and Healthcare from 2017 – 2020. He has served as a non-executive on numerous engineering joint ventures including Romec with the Royal Mail, Atomic Weapons establishment, and United Group in Australia.

Kata Escott CB
Member of the Advisory BoardKata Escott CB is the UK Managing Director for Defence and Space at Airbus, a role she has held since 2023. Previously, she worked across a range of government and national security priorities as a senior civil servant. She has worked in the Ministry of Defence for much of her career with a focus on policy, operations and planning. In 2021, she led a major reset of UK defence strategy including a decisive shift towards a more modern, tech-enabled military. She has also held pivotal roles at the centre of government, including supporting the National Security Council with strategy advice through the Integrated Review, AUKUS and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She was the Chief of Staff to the Cabinet Secretary from 2016-19.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Fallon KCB
Member of the Advisory BoardThe Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Fallon KCB is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 2014 to 2017. He served as the Member of Parliament for Sevenoaks from 1997 to 2019, having previously served for Darlington from 1983 to 1992. He served as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2012 and Minister of State for Business and Enterprise from 2012 to 2014. Sir Michael also served as Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2013 to 2014 and Minister of State for Portsmouth in 2014, before being appointed Defence Secretary under both David Cameron and Theresa May.

Richard Foord MP
Member of the Advisory BoardRichard Foord has been Member of Parliament for Honiton and Sidmouth since 2024. He represented Tiverton and Honiton from 2022 to 2024. He served in the British Army as an education officer between 2000 and 2010, including on postings to Kosovo, Iraq and at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. He then worked at the universities of Exeter and Oxford on international partnerships, focusing more recently on the security of sensitive research at British universities.

Dr Carl Stephen Patrick Hunter OBE
Member of the Advisory BoardDr Carl Stephen Patrick Hunter OBE is Chairman of Coltraco Ultrasonics, Chairman of the Council on Geostrategy Forum & Whitehall Briefings, Director the Centre for Underwater Acoustic Analysis, Director-General of the Durham Institute of Research, Development and Invention, Professor-in-Practice, Durham University, with his laboratory co-located with the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation, Department of Physics, Senior Research Fellow Strategy, Statecraft, Technology, Changing Character of War Centre, Pembroke College, Oxford, Visiting Fellow of the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre and Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology & the Royal Aeronautical Society. A former Greenjacket Officer, he was a member of the Covid-19 Economic Recovery Taskforce and advises several government departments.

Prof. Andrew Lambert
Member of the Advisory BoardProf. Andrew Lambert is Laughton Professor of Naval History at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, where he directs the Laughton Naval Unit. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He received the 2014 Anderson Medal for his book The Challenge: Britain against America in the Naval War of 1812. His latest books are The British Way of War: Julian Corbett and the Battle for a National Strategy (2021) and Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict that Made the Modern World (2019), which won the 2018 Gilder Lehrman Book Prize in Military History.

Emma Lewell-Buck MP
Member of the Advisory BoardEmma Lewell-Buck is the Labour Member of Parliament for South Shields. She has been a member of the Defence Committee since 2020 and led the AI in Defence Sub-Committee. Emma is currently enrolled on the Global Strategy Programme at the Royal College of Defence Studies, and on the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. Emma formerly held shadow frontbench roles and is a long-standing patron of Forward Assist veterans’ charity.

Maj. Gen. (rtd.) Mitch Mitchell CB MBE
Member of the Advisory BoardMaj. Gen. (rtd.) Mitch Mitchell CB MBE served for 36 years in the British Army. In 2016, he became the Head of the Technology School at the United Kingdom Defence Academy before becoming – the same year – the Director of the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre. In this role, he helped provide strategic thought and analysis to the Ministry of Defence’s boardroom decision makers and inform them on policy, strategy and capability investment. During this period he developed the Ministry of Defence’s first ‘Integrated Operating Concept’, a strategic response to new forms of state and non-state competition, principally involving Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

The Lord Mountevans
Member of the Advisory BoardJeffrey Evans, 4th Baron Mountevans, has spent a lifetime in maritime affairs. He has been a career shipbroker with the leading international firm of Clarksons Platou, has chaired two national maritime trade associations and has held a number of senior maritime industry positions. He was elected to sit in the House of Lords as a crossbench hereditary peer in July 2015. He served as the 688th Lord Mayor of London from 2015 to 2016. Lord Mountevans has an MA in Economics from Pembroke College, Cambridge. He holds honorary doctorates in Maritime Science and Maritime Business.

The Rt. Hon. Baroness Neville-Jones DCMG
Member of the Advisory BoardThe Rt. Hon. Baroness Neville Jones DCMG is a member of the House of Lords. She has a long career in national security and is presently a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy in the Houses of Parliament. She was Prime Minister David Cameron’s National Security Adviser in Opposition becoming Minister for Security and Counter-Terrorism and a member of National Security Council for two years from 2010 to 2011. Prior to her parliamentary career, Baroness Neville-Jones worked in foreign affairs having been a member of the British Diplomatic Service from 1963 to 1991.

Lord Risby
Member of the Advisory BoardLord Risby was MP for Bury St Edmunds (1992 to 1997) and for West Suffolk (1997-2010). Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Northern Ireland Office, he was subsequently Shadow Minister for DCMS, Foreign Affairs and the Treasury. He was appointed a life Peer in 2010 and is the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy for Algeria and Lebanon.

The Rt. Hon. Lord Spellar
Member of the Advisory BoardThe Rt. Hon. Lord Spellar was Member of Parliament for Warley (1992-2024). He was Vice Chair of the Defence Select Committee from 2020 to 2024, having previously been a member from 2015 to 2019. He was the Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2010 to 2015. Before that, he was appointed as the Minister for Northern Ireland from 2003 to 2005 and the Minister for Armed Forces from 1999 to 2001.