Anne Keast-Butler

Part of the IT Leaders 100 - a list of the most influential IT leaders in the UK in 2026.

Anne Keast-Butler is Director of GCHQ, the UK’s signals intelligence, cyber and security agency. She took up the role in May 2023, becoming the organisation’s seventeenth director and the first woman to lead it.

With more than three decades in national security she built her career largely at MI5, where she rose to Deputy Director General, overseeing operational, investigative and protective security work, including responses to major geopolitical threats.

She has also held senior strategic roles, spent time seconded to GCHQ leading counter-terrorism efforts, and contributed to the UK’s National Cyber Security Programme.

Born in Cambridge and educated in mathematics at Merton College, Oxford, she is widely recognised for her leadership in cybersecurity and intelligence.