Helen Alice Bower-Easton

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 1978) is a British civil servant who was the first woman to serve as the Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson. She is Director of Communication at the

Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...

Life

Helen Bower was born in Birmingham, the daughter of John and Diana Bower. She was educated at

Edgbaston High School for Girls Edgbaston High School for Girls is a private day school for girls aged to 18 in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England. History In 1846, Elizabeth Brady founded a school in Edgbaston for the daughters of Quakers in 1846 and this ran for 21 ...

and

Cardiff University , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

, graduating in 2001 with a BA in Economics and EU Studies with French and Italian. Bower entered the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in 2003. In June 2015 she was appointed Official Spokesperson to the Prime Minister, the first woman to be appointed to the post. In August 2016 she was conferred a CBE in

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

resignation honours list The Prime Minister's Resignation Honours in the United Kingdom are honours granted at the behest of an outgoing prime minister following their resignation. In such a list, a prime minister may ask the monarch to bestow peerages, or lesser honours, ...

.Theresa May's spokesperson Helen Bower-Easton to head up comms at the Foreign Office
''Civil Service World'', 20 December 2016. Accessed 15 November 2020. In September 2016 the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' included her in its list of London's 1,000 most influential people.The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2016 - Westminster
''

'', 7 September 2016. Accessed 15 November 2020. In December 2016 she left No. 10 to take up the job of Director of Communications at the Foreign Office.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bower-Easton, Helen 1978 births Living people Alumni of Cardiff University 21st-century British civil servants Civil servants in the Foreign Office Commanders of the Order of the British Empire