The UK government has appointed Ken McCallum, a career spy who led the response to the Salisbury poison attack against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, as the new director-general of MI5.
Mr McCallum, who is in his 40s, is currently deputy director-general of the UK’s domestic security service and will become one of the agency’s youngest ever director-generals. A state educated Scot with a broad Glaswegian accent, he has spent almost 25 years at MI5, including stints covering terrorism in Northern Ireland and leading counterterror efforts during the 2012 London Olympics. During a secondment to the government’s business department, Mr McCallum worked with industry to bolster its defences against cyber attack.
One of his most high-profile operations was managing the security agencies’ response in 2018 to the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury using novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union.
In the aftermath of the attack, Mr McCallum led the attribution of the poisoning to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, and the identification of the suspects. He then worked with the government in implementing an international expulsion of Russian diplomats.
Aside from the heightened threat from Russia, the new director-general will have to oversee a complex brief, including the increasing risk of rightwing terror, the continued threat from Islamist terrorism, the integration of Chinese technology into UK national infrastructure and the geopolitical changes caused by increasing US isolationism. He will also help manage new security partnerships with European allies post-Brexit.
He replaces Andrew Parker, who is stepping down next month after seven years as the head of the service. Sir Andrew’s tenure was extended to avoid a change of director-general at a time when Britain was preparing to leave the EU. Alex Younger, chief of foreign security service MI6, is due to step down this summer.
Announcing the appointment, Sir Andrew said Mr McCallum brought a “wealth of leadership and national security expertise” to the job and was “already leading work to shape the future of MI5”.
However, Sir Andrew also warned that these attributes were “all the more important today” as the agency helps the country manage the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr McCallum is due to shadow the director-general for the next month before taking over formally at the end of April. With a reputation as a keen “do-er” rather than an observer, he is described as a cheerful and enthusiastic collaborator within Whitehall. “MI5’s purpose is hugely motivating,” he said in a statement. “Our people — with our partners — strive to keep the country safe, and they always want to go the extra mile. Having devoted my working life to that team effort, it is a huge privilege now to be asked to lead it as director-general.”
A mathematics graduate who studied at Glasgow university, one of Mr McCallum’s priorities will be to make the most of emerging technology, including machine learning, to help advance MI5’s work.
In an interview with the Financial Times this year, Sir Andrew said it was vital that the agency harnessed artificial intelligence “because of our need to be able to make sense of the data lives of thousands of people in as near to real time as we can get to”. Mr McCallum wants to broker new relationships with the private sector in order to access the best technology for counter-terrorism and espionage, one security official said.
