Scott Wightman is a former British diplomat and civil servant who has worked in leadership roles in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London, the Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and in the UK’s overseas diplomatic network.
Roles in London included Director for Global and Economic Issues from 2006 to 2008, where he led the FCO’s climate, economic and science and innovation networks, and Director Asia Pacific from 2008 to 2010, where he was the Foreign Secretary’s principal policy advisor on China. As the UK Prime Minister’s G8 Foreign Affairs Sous-Sherpa he negotiated the Leaders Declaration at the 2008 G8 Summit in Toyako.
Overseas, he has specialised in East Asia and Western Europe. His first overseas posting was to Beijing after studying Mandarin in Taiwan. He spent four years in Paris, including a year on secondment to the French Foreign Ministry, then three years in the Political Section of the British Embassy. He was Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Rome from 2002-2006. He was British Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2011 to 2015 and British High Commissioner to Singapore from 2015 to 2019.
In Edinburgh, he was Director for External Affairs in the Scottish Government from 2019 to 2024, advising Scottish Ministers on all aspects of international relations and engagement, as well as leading its network of overseas offices and its international development programme, and was responsible for the Scottish Government’s work on population and migration.