Speaker
Giles
Portman
Position
Giles Portman has been Head of the East Stratcom Task Force in the European External Action Service in Brussels since September 2015. The Task Force was established on the mandate of the March 2015 European Council and is responsible for communicating and promoting EU policies in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood, strengthening the media environment and media independence in the region, and improving the EU’s capacity to anticipate and respond to disinformation. Prior to his appointment, Giles Portman worked for 12 years on EU-Turkey relations, as chair of the EU enlargement working group that negotiated the opening of Turkey’s EU accession negotiations in 2005, as deputy head of mission at the British Embassy in Ankara and as advisor, then head of division for Turkey at the European External Action Service. He has also served on diplomatic postings to the UN in New York and to Prague, and in London as an EU communications adviser and speechwriter to a former UK Minister for Europe. Before his diplomatic career he worked on the privatisation of British Rail. He has a BA and an MA from the University of Oxford.