Since September 2025, Clare has been the Strategy Director in the Ministry of Defence, responsible for creating a Defence Strategy and Defence Plan to deliver the 2025 Strategic Defence Review.
Prior to that Clare was on a secondment to the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, working to increase the Catapult’s impact in the national security sector.
From 2022 to 2024, Clare was Director for Euro-Atlantic security in the Ministry of Defence, responsible for policy and operations for NATO, bilateral defence relations with Europe and Canada, Russia policy and UK Defence’s support to Ukraine.
Before that, Clare was the Director of Defence Innovation in the Ministry of Defence. She was responsible for leading the innovation effort in Defence, the policy and strategy for innovation, engendering a culture of ‘innovation by instinct’, breaking down the barriers to innovation and leading the Defence and Security Accelerator. During this time, Clare led the work to develop the 2021 Defence and Security Industrial Strategy.
Policy for military operations has been a theme through Clare’s career, including being a deputy director in the MOD Operations Directorate responsible for Special Forces’ operations, operational legal policy and intelligence policy. She also deployed to Helmand in 2008/9. This has been balanced by defence strategy, investment decisions in MOD, time in Private Office and working in the Cabinet Office from 2016-2018 providing advice to the Prime Minister on a wide range of Defence issues from the Defence budget to defence exports, lawfare, innovation and the nuclear deterrent.
Clare is a mother and step-mother and spends most of her time outside work amateur farming – while trying to make sure there is also room for culture, in particular art and literature.
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