George Robertson Keynote Speaker

Lord (George) Robertson is a Special Adviser to BP plc and Vice Chair of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. He also Chairs the FIA Foundation and Western Ferries (Clyde) Ltd and he is a Senior Counsellor with The Cohen Group (Washington DC).

He was the 10^th Secretary General of NATO and Chairman of the North Atlantic Council from 1999 to 2003 and UK Secretary of State for Defence from 1997-1999. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland in the Shadow Cabinet from 1992-1997 and Principal Opposition Spokesman on Europe from 1983-92. He was Member of Parliament for Hamilton and then Hamilton South from 1978 -99 and joined the House of Lords in 1999. He became a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council in 1997.

He is a Trustee of the British Forces Foundation, an Elder Brother of Trinity House, Chairs the Ohrid Group (friends of North Macedonia), is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, on the International Advisory Board of Equilibrium Gulf (Bahrain) and a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund. He is a Senior Adviser to Chatham House and on the Advisory Councils of the Centre for European Reform, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the International Advisory Board of the US Atlantic Council.

Former positions include Chair of the Ditchley Foundation and of the John Smith Memorial Trust, Vice Chair of the British Council and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, a Joint President of Chatham House, a Governor of the Scottish Police College, a Board Member of the Scottish Development Agency and the Scottish Tourist Board, Trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and Hon Colonel of the London Scottish Regiment. He was a Prime Ministerial appointment to the Advisory Board of the commemorations of World War One. He co-chaired in 2019 with former French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, a Joint Kings College/Institut Montagne study on British French defence cooperation.

In the private sector he was Deputy Chair of TNK-BP (BP’s Russian Joint Venture) and Chaired its Audit Committee, Deputy Chair of Cable and Wireless plc and Chair of Cable and Wireless International, and a Non-Executive Director of the Weir Group plc (where he was Senior Non-Executive Director), the Smiths Group plc and Monaco Telecom SA. He was short-listed in the Sunday Times Non-Executive Directors Awards.

He has a number of Honorary Doctorates including from Dundee, St Andrews, Bradford, Lincoln, Robert Gordons, Glasgow Caledonian and Stirling Universities, the European University of Armenia and the National Academies of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal College of Defence Studies. He is an Honorary Professor at Stirling University and Visiting Professor at Kings College, London.

He is one of the sixteen Knights of the Thistle (KT), Chancellor (till this year) and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG), and among several high international honours received, he was awarded the highest American civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.