| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Lord Powell of Bayswater | |
| Office: | Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the Prime Minister |
| Term Start: | 1983 |
| Term End: | 1991 |
| Predecessor: | John Coles |
| Successor: | Stephen Wall |
| Office2: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
| Term Start2: | 15 February 2000 Life peerage |
| Birth Name: | Charles David Powell |
| Birth Date: | 1941 7, df=y |
| Party: | Crossbench |
| Alma Mater: | New College, Oxford |
| Children: | 2 |
Charles David Powell, Baron Powell of Bayswater, (born 6 July 1941) (pronounced 'pole'[1]) is a British diplomat and businessman who served as a key foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s.
Son of Air Vice Marshal John Frederick Powell and his wife Ysolda,[2] Powell was educated at the Cathedral Choir School, Canterbury; King's School, Canterbury; and New College, Oxford, graduating BA in 1963 with first class honours in Modern History. One brother, Sir Chris Powell, is an advertiser; another, Jonathan, was chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Charles Powell joined His Majesty's Diplomatic Service in 1963. His first posting was as Third Secretary to Helsinki in 1965, where he was promoted to Second Secretary. In 1968, he returned to London, spending three years at the FCO. He was posted as First Secretary to Washington, D.C. in 1971, as the Ambassador's Private Secretary. Subsequent postings were to Bonn in 1974 and, as Counsellor, to UKREP Brussels in 1980.[3] He was seconded to 10 Downing Street and served as Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher (1983 to 1990) and then as Private Secretary to John Major (1990 to 1991). During his time working for Mrs Thatcher, he became one of her most trusted foreign policy aides.
Since 1992 Powell has served on the boards of Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd, LVMH Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Caterpillar Inc., Textron Corporation, Mandarin Oriental International Ltd, Hongkong Land Ltd and Schindler Holding Ltd. He chaired the international advisory board of Rolls-Royce and is a member of the advisory boards of Barrick Gold, Chubb Insurance and Thales, and a strategic adviser to BAE Systems and an adviser to Bowmark Private Equity. He was for ten years chairman of both the China-Britain Business Council and the Singapore British Business Council, as well as chairman of the British Government's Asia Task Force.
He currently sits as a crossbench life peer in the House of Lords. He is currently a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
He is chairman of the British Museum Trust, chairman of the Trustees of the Said Business School at Oxford University, and trustee of the Said Foundation, the Margaret Thatcher Scholarships at Oxford, the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust at Cambridge, chairman of the Atlantic Partnership and a member of King's College London Campaign Board.
He married Carla Bonardi in 1964. They have two sons, born in 1967 and 1968.
He has three younger brothers, Chris (co-founder of DDB Advertising Agency, and currently chair of NESTA), Roderick (Rod), and Jonathan, the Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair, a member of the Labour Party.
Powell is an Honorary Fellow of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, a Foundation Fellow of Somerville College Oxford, and an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London, a visiting professor at St Mary's University and has an honorary DSc from Shiv Nadar University in India.[4]
Powell has been interviewed for multiple documentaries about Margaret Thatcher and about foreign policy.
Powell was portrayed by Terence Harvey in the 2004 BBC production of The Alan Clark Diaries, by James Fox in 2009's Margaret and by Dominic Rowan in Netflix's The Crown'.
| Escutcheon: | Quarterly Argent and Or on a chevron throughout Vert between three fleurs de lys Gules three mural crowns Or on a chief Azure three pigs passant Or winged Argent. |
| Crest: | With a chapeau Gules charged with three bezants turned up Argent plumed on the sinister side with a swan's wing Or a ruined square based tower of the Roman campagna also Or.[5] |
| Supporters: | On either side a lion Or that on the dexter supporting with the exterior foreclaws a shaft of palewise Argent entwined with oak leaves slipped Vert fructed Or and terminating in base a pheon reversed Argent and that on the sinister holding with the exterior foreclaws a lily slipped and leaved Proper. |
| Motto: | Pedibus Stantibus |