David Frost

Who is David Frost?

David George Hamilton Frost, CMG, is CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association, a major trade association, as of January 2014.

He spent 25 years as a British diplomat, working among other things as British Ambassador in Denmark, EU Director in the FCO, and Director covering Europe and international trade at the Department for Business. He remains a specialist in and commentator on the European Union, global economic and commercial issues, and multilateral diplomacy, and is an member of the Advisory Council of the EU think tank Open Europe.

He was born in Derby, where his parents worked for Rolls Royce Limited. He attended Nottingham High School on a free scholarship from 1976 to 1983.

He studied at St John's College Oxford, where he took a First-Class degree in French and History, specialising in medieval European History and medieval French.

He joined the Foreign Office in 1987 and shortly after was posted to the British High Commission in Nicosia where he learned Greek and was responsible for covering Greek Cypriot politics and the Cyprus problem. In 1993 he was posted to the UK Representation to the EU in Brussels as First Secretary for Economic and Financial Affairs, where he worked on issues such as the EU Budget, the economic and financial implications of enlargement to Central Europe, and the ~Euro. He was then posted to the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York, where he covered human rights and social and economic affairs.