Nick Mitchell worked in the UK Government for 33 years before leaving the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in 2011. He has been involved in a range of non-proliferation, counter proliferation and export control work since 1989. For 10 years he ran the Government’s main committee which co-ordinated the enforcement of export controls, having first-hand experience of implementing UN Sanctions against Iraq, collaboration with international partners, working with Customs to enforce controls but also with business to help them avoid become unwitting suppliers to WMD programmes.

After 18 months on counter-proliferation awareness, Nick spent 3 years on nuclear non-proliferation work, co-ordinating the UK’s policies and support in respect of the IAEA, such as nuclear safeguards and nuclear security. He negotiated for the UK at the NPT in New York and Geneva and at meetings of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and has wide experience of international export control mechanisms. More recently he ran one of the Export Control Organisation’s Licensing Units, where he worked with various parts of Government, international partners and large numbers of exporters to administer the UK’s export control responsibilities.