Chris Campbell | |
Office: | British Ambassador to Ecuador |
Term Start: | November 2020 |
Term End: | 23 November 2023 |
Primeminister: | Boris Johnson Liz Truss Rishi Sunak |
Predecessor: | Katherine Ward |
Office1: | British Ambassador to the Dominican Republic |
Monarch1: | Elizabeth II |
Term Start1: | 2015 |
Term End1: | 2019 |
Predecessor1: | Steven Fisher |
Successor1: | Mockbul Ali |
Primeminister1: | David Cameron Theresa May Boris Johnson |
Office2: | British Ambassador to Nicaragua |
Monarch2: | Elizabeth II |
Primeminister2: | David Cameron |
Term Start2: | 2011 |
Term End2: | 2 June 2015[1] |
Predecessor2: | Thomas Kennedy |
Successor2: | Ross Denny |
Birthname: | Christopher John Campbell |
Nationality: | British |
Spouse: | Sharon Campbell |
Occupation: | Diplomat |
Christopher John Campbell is a British diplomat who has served as the United Kingdom's ambassador to Ecuador since 13 October 2020.[2] [3] He also served as the ambassador to Nicaragua between 2011 and 2015 and the ambassador to the Dominican Republic between 2015 and 2020.
Campbell joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1982 and started in the North America Department. In 1984, he moved to the Secretary of State's Private Office and the next year was placed to the UK Embassy in Khartoum as an economist. From 1988 he worked at the embassy in Dhaka and from 1992 at the embassy in Jakarta.[4]
Campbell served as the Ambassador to Nicaragua from 2011 to 2015. During the same period, his wife, Sharon Campbell, was the Ambassador to Costa Rica, making them one of the only married couples to ever be ambassadors to neighbouring countries.[5] [6] Because the UK did not have an embassy in Nicaragua, the post was non-residential and Campbell worked from San José.
He served as the British Ambassador to the Dominican Republic from 2015 to 2020.[7] In 2020, Campbell said that Brexit would not impact trade with the Dominican Republic thanks to the CARIFORUM-UK Agreement, but pushed the Dominican Congress to ratify the agreement as quickly as possible.[8]
On 13 October 2020, he was recognised as British Ambassador to Ecuador. In a 2021 interview, Campbell called himself a "trade-focused ambassador" and said he would seek to increase the trade relation between the UK and Ecuador.[9] He expressed support for Trade Minister Jose Julio Prado's plan to boost competitiveness and increase exports and for initiatives to make mining in Ecuador more responsible and transparent.[10] In July 2022, Niels Olsen, Ecuador's tourism minister, credited the work of Campbell and Ecuador's foreign minister Juan Carlos Holguin after the UK Foreign Office announced Ecuador would be moved to the green list for travel;[11] Campbell had previously been sent a public letter by four of Ecuador's largest tourism organisations asking for the country's travel advisory to be reviewed.[12] Upon the death of Elizabeth II, Campbell said that people would be missing her "all around the world".[13]
Campbell met his wife Sharon while working at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and they married in 1989.