Nigel Phillips

Nigel James Phillips CBE (born May 1963) is a British diplomat, Royal Air Force officer and the current Governor of the Falkland Islands and Commissioner of the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

Phillips joined the Royal Air Force in 1984 and went on to serve in various appointments, rising to the rank of Air Commodore. From 1993 to 1997 he attended Durham University, graduating as a Master of Business Administration and in 2001 he gained a Masters in Defence Studies, Military, political and international issues from King's College London, where he was awarded a Cormorant Fellowship. He went on to join the Defence Communication Services Agency as a Senior Staff Officer. Then in 2003 he was assigned to the British Embassy in Stockholm as the Defence Attaché.

In 2007 Phillips left Stockholm to become the Deputy Commandant and Garrison Commander at the Defence College of Communications and Information Systems. Two years later, in 2009, Phillips was assigned to the British Embassy in Warsaw, again as the Defence Attaché. Also in 2009, he was given the Master of Signals Award by the Royal Signals Institute.

Phillips undertook Russian language training at the Defence Academy in 2012 and in 2014 he was appointed Head of Russian Strategic Studies and Wider Europe Policy at the Ministry of Defence. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2013 Birthday Honours and in 2016 Phillips became the Deputy Military Representative to Her Majesty's Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels, under the Ministry of Defence.

In June 2017 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that Phillips had been appointed the new Governor of the Falkland Islands and Commissioner for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, succeeding Colin Roberts on 12 September 2017.