Alistair joined The Elders in November 2021 as Chief Executive. He advises Elders on all aspects of their activities, and leads the Secretariat team. He reports to the Chair of The Elders (Mary Robinson).

Alistair’s career spans development, human rights and foreign policy over three decades. He led British government aid programmes in Kenya, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and was a diplomat at the UN in New York, and the UK Director responsible for World Bank policy. He has also been a strategy consultant with McKinsey, a humanitarian aid worker with Médecins Sans Frontières, and a human rights campaigner with Amnesty International. He has lived and worked in 10 countries across 5 continents, including 10 years in Africa and South Asia.

Alistair took the top First in Politics at Oxford University in 1992. He has run 16 marathons. He lives in south-west London with his wife, their teenage twins, and a rescue greyhound called Grace.