Dianna Melrose

Who is Dianna Melrose?

Dianna Melrose is a British diplomat who has been appointed to be High Commissioner to Tanzania from early 2013.

She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, King's College London and the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London. She worked as a Spanish interpreter in the City of London, then briefly for the British Council, before joining Oxfam in 1980. She was Policy Director of Oxfam GB, 1993–99. She then joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as Deputy Head, then Head, of its Policy Planning Staff. She was seconded to the Department for International Development in 2002, first as head of its Extractive Industries Unit and then as head of DFID's International Trade Department. In 2006 she returned to the FCO as head of its EU Enlargement and Southeast Europe group before being posted as Ambassador to Cuba in 2008. She left Cuba in July 2012 and has been appointed British High Commissioner to Tanzania, to take up the post on February or March 2013.