GCHQ appoints its first ever woman director

SECRET service chief Anne Keast-Butler will become GCHQ's first woman boss in the intelligence centre's 100-plus year history.

- Michael Knowles

Anne Keast-Butler, currently MI5's deputy director-general, will be the security and cyber agency's 17th leader when she succeeds Sir Jeremy Fleming next month.

Before holding top roles at MI5, she spent two years on secondment as head of counter-terrorism and serious organised crime at GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

She has also helped launch the National Cyber Security Programme.