Barbara Woodward

Dame Barbara Janet Woodward (born 29 May 1961) is a British diplomat and China expert.

Barbara Janet Woodward was born to Arthur Claude Woodward (1921–1992) and Rosemary Monica Gabrielle Fenton in Gipping, Suffolk, United Kingdom, on 29 May 1961.

Her father served in World War II as an officer of the Suffolk Regiment, and won the Military Cross for gallantry.

He was later elected Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS).

Barbara Woodward was educated at South Lee School in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and then at Saint Felix School, a co-educational, boarding independent school in Southwold, Suffolk.

Woodward was then admitted to the University of St Andrews in Scotland in 1979 and read history.

She graduated in 1983 with an undergraduate Master of Arts (MA Hons) degree.

She taught English, first at Nankai University, and then at Hubei University, in Wuhan, China between 1986 and 1988.

She later learned and mastered Chinese.

Her teacher in London gave her the Chinese name Wu Baina (吴百纳 Wú Bǎinà).

In 1988, she went on to Yale University in the United States to further her studies on international relations, and obtained a postgraduate Master of Arts (MA) degree.

She joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1994 and has worked in China, Russia, the European Union and at the United Nations.

Woodward joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1994.

She served in Russia from 1994 to 1998 as Second (and later First) Secretary, and in China from 2003 to 2009, first as Political Counsellor, then across the whole United Kingdom-China relationship as Deputy Head of Mission, including during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Woodward was included in the 1999 New Year Honours list and made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II when she was serving as the First Secretary to Moscow.

From 2011 to 2015 she was Director General for Economic and Consular Affairs at the FCO.

In 2011, she was included in the Birthday Honours and made a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George for services to UK-China relations.

She is the current Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, having previously served as British Ambassador to China from 2015 to 2020, the first woman to hold that position.

Woodward undertook her undergraduate degree at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, before going on to study international relations at Yale University.

In February 2015 she was appointed British Ambassador to China, the first woman to hold the position.

In 2015, in a conversation with Lucy D'Orsi, Queen Elizabeth II said that Chinese officials "were very rude to the ambassador" (referring to Woodward), during an event at Lancaster House, London.

In 2016, she was included in the Birthday Honours and made a Dame Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George for services to UK-China relations.

She was succeeded in September 2020 by Caroline Wilson.

Woodward was appointed Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations by the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, in 2020.

Woodward's hobbies include sports, particularly competitive swimming and tennis.

She is a member of the Otter Swimming Club in London and has previously served as its Honorary Secretary.