Breakfast Briefing with Jenny Bates, Heywood Fellow 2025-26
This briefing will explore the shifting global economic order, Britain’s role within it, and how to secure sustainable prosperity in an era of strategic competition.
The Heywood Fellowship, established by the Heywood Foundation and Blavatnik School at the University of Oxford and supported by the Cabinet Office, gives a UK Senior Civil Servant the opportunity to explore issues relating to public service and policy outside of the immediate responsibilities of government duties.
The 2025-2026 Heywood Fellowship sets out to consider a refreshed UK strategy for navigating the changing global economic order at this pivotal moment in time. It explores the UK’s long-term needs and objectives, identifies current and future challenges, and proposes a new strategic framework for the UK's international economic statecraft.
Join this briefing to hear from the fourth Heywood Fellow, Jenny Bates, on
- A refreshed strategy for the UK’s role in an evolving global economic order
- How business and government can collaborate to deliver this strategy in this new world.
Jenny Bates is the fourth Heywood Fellow.
Her career has spanned more than two decades of economic policymaking in the British government (in FCDO, BEIS and HM Treasury), working across the intersection of international and domestic economic issues. Jenny is a professional Economist and has led interdisciplinary analytical teams - as well as leading policy work on topics including trade and economic security, industrial strategy, climate and the energy transition and development finance. Jenny was Director General in the FCDO from 2020 to 2025, undertaking two roles focussed on China and the Indo Pacific and then more recently on Economics, Climate and Global Issues. Prior to joining FCDO, Jenny led the Smith Commission Secretariat on the devolution of further powers to Scotland and held senior roles in what was then the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
She started her career at HM Treasury working on global economic issues and engaging with groupings like the Paris Club, OECD, G20 and G7 and had a period focused more on domestic policy, leading a team with responsibility for UK budget delivery. Jenny has spent significant time in Washington DC, both through a posting to the British Embassy in Washington from 2005-9 and, before joining government, working on trade policy issues at the Progressive Policy Institute from 1998 to 2001.
When registering for this event you can choose whether you would prefer to attend in-person or virtually. Please note in-person capacity is limited, and any members we are unable to accommodate face-to-face will be offered the opportunity to join virtually. The livestream will run from 08:30-09:30.