Former British Diplomat
John Everard was educated at The Kings School, Chester and at King Edward VI School, Lichfield, before winning an exhibition to Emmanuel College Cambridge where he studied French, German and Chinese. He then attended Beijing University for a year, studying history and economics, as one of only the third group of foreign students allowed into China after the Cultural Revolution. He also holds an MBA from Manchester Business School.
He then served in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for twenty-seven years, working in Austria, Bosnia, Chile, and China (twice). He served as Ambassador three times, in Belarus, Uruguay and lastly in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from 2006-2008. After his retirement from the diplomatic service in 2008 he was appointed Pantech Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University from 2010-2011. He was then appointed as Coordinator of the United Nations Security Council Panel of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1874 (dealing with sanctions on the DPRK). He withdrew from that position in November 2012 and has since written extensively for the media, broadcast and lectured, both on Korean issues and on international affairs generally. He is a Patron of the UK Defence Forum.
He published a book Only Beautiful, Please in 2012 that described his experiences of living and working in the DPRK and discussed some of the challenges presented by that country.