Karen Pierce has become the UK's first ever female ambassador to the UN.
- She is a political director general at the Foreign Office who first joined the FCO in 1981
- She will take over the role in January, succeeding 18 male postwar predecessors.
- She had represented UK in a wide variety of capacities, attending functions hosted by organisations such as the UN and the World Trade Organisation.
- Pierce will succeed Matthew Rycroft, who is to return to the UK as permanent secretary to the Department for International Development.
