Sir Simon Mayall

Sir Simon Mayall is a senior adviser for Greenhill & Co, the investment bank. Previously, he had a 40-year long career in the British Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo among other places.In the army, Mayall held the rank of Lieutenant General and between 2011 and 2014 was also Middle East Senior Adviser at the UK Ministry of Defence. While in the army he completed a Defence Fellowship at the University of Oxford, studying Turkish security policy, and held the offices of Deputy Commanding General in the Multi-National Corps (Iraq), Assistant Chief of the General Staff, and Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff. By family background, academic inclination and professional choice and circumstances, he served much of his time in Arabia.

Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayall has a distinguished 40 year plus career in the British Army, during which he served in Germany, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. Sir Simon Mayall also held several high level appointments in the policy world of the Ministry of Defence. From his family background, academic inclination and professional choice and circumstances, he served much of his time in Arabia. Having studied Modern History at Oxford, including a specialisation in the Crusading period, he also wrote a book on Turkish Security Policy, and completed a thesis on Jihadi ideology for his Masters at King’s College. Sir Simon Mayall set up the post of Defence Senior Adviser for the Middle East, in which appointment he was responsible for the new Royal Navy base in Bahrain, Britain’s first permanent military base East of Suez since 1971. Having retired in 2015, General Mayall acts as a senior adviser to Greenhill, and to Coutts Bank. He appears regularly on television and radio, discussing issues around the Middle East, and his book, Soldier in the Sand, A Personal History of the Middle East, was published this year. Sir Simon Mayal Knighted in 2014, he also holds the US Legion of Merit for service in Iraq.