Sir Stephen O’Brien is a British diplomat, politician, and business leader who was the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency  Relief Coordinator from 2015 succeeding Baroness Valerie Amos.
         
He has significant international and UK legal, industrial, business and political experience, and was appointed a non-executive director of the Department for International Trade in June 2019.
         
Stephen studied Law at Cambridge and then started his unusually varied career on a malaria expedition. Ever since, he has been campaigning at a global level on malaria control and elimination, serving as a Board Member of Liverpool School for Tropical Medicine for many years and using his skills in politics, finance, and industry to bring about change.  It is no coincidence that in September 2013 he became the Prime Minister's Envoy to the Sahel, encompassing nine countries across North and West Africa where malaria is prevalent.  In the same year, he gave a memorable lecture ’Beating Malaria’ at Keele World Affairs.
         
In politics he was a founding member of the SDP, but resigned when they allied with the Liberals. He served as Member of Parliament (Conservative) for Eddisbury from 1999 to 2015 and served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development from 2010 to 2012.