For ten years until 2005 Sir Mike Aaronson was director general of Save the Children UK, having previously spent seven years as the charity's overseas director. He first joined Save the Children in 1969, spending two years as a relief worker in Nigeria after reading philosophy and psychology at St John's College, Oxford. Subsequently, during a sixteen-year career in the UK Diplomatic Service, he served in London, Paris, Lagos, and Rangoon. When he left Save the Children he became a civil service commissioner, appointed by the Crown to maintain the principle of fair and open recruitment to the UK Civil Service. For ten years he was chairman of Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He is also a non-executive director of Oxford Policy Management Limited. Mike is a founding member, and for seven years was chair of the board, of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and he has been a governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in London. In 2008 he was appointed an honorary visiting professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey. In 2011 he became a professorial research fellow and executive director of the Centre for International Intervention (cii), at Surrey. In 2015 he reverted to being an honorary visiting professor, but continues to guide the work of cii. He is also an Honorary Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He has been an occasional senior adviser to NATO, and has also lectured at the UK Defence Academy on civil/military collaboration in conflict situations. He is also a research associate of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict. Since 2016 Mike has chaired the Strategic Advisory Group of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). In 2000 Mike was made a CBE and in 2006 he was made a Knight Bachelor for services to children. In 2011 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Surrey.