Joanna Roper CMG is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Special Envoy for Gender Equality, and former Chair of FCO Women. She will be made a Doctor of the University at the 2019 Congregations ceremonies in recognition of her inspirational career in the civil service and her current role as the first ever appointment to it.
Ms Roper graduated from the University of Kent in 1991 with a BA Hons in Social Anthropology with Linguistics and started her career in the Home Office in 1992 before entering the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 2001.
Before being made Special Envoy in February 2017, Ms Roper was the acting Director General for the Department for International Trade at the British Embassy in Beijing, and before that was the Director for Consular Services in the FCO, overseeing a global network of some 700 people providing assistance to British nationals who find themselves in difficulty overseas.
On the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, and at a time when women and girls continue to suffer violence and discrimination all over the world, this is a resonant time to honour the first ever Special Envoy for Gender Equality.
She will receive her honorary Doctor of the University degree at a ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on 18 July, starting at 19.30.