British Council Wales has announced the appointment of Ruth Cocks as its new Director.
Ruth will lead global education and arts programmes and will sustain and grow the British Council’s current network of relationships across Wales. She will support engagement around culture, education, and sporting diplomacy with a network of over 100 international offices, taking the best of Wales to the world and vice versa.
Ruth will join the team in Cardiff. moving from Cairo where she has been Deputy Country Director for the past two-and-a-half years. In Egypt, Ruth led the British Council’s work across the Arts, English and Education, and had a particular focus on climate change, heading-up work for COP27 last year in Sharm el Sheikh.
Ruth is excited to return home to Wales and says about the new role:
“I’m absolutely thrilled to head up the British Council in Wales and join such a great team. I’ve been with the British Council for 19 years and have travelled the world, learnt languages, and made global connections. During my time overseas, I haven’t stopped championing Wales internationally, showcasing Welsh language, sports, education, and culture. I want to continue to raise the profile of Wales on a global scale”.
“As well as our brilliant and well-established arts programme in Wales, we are excited to be launching new projects to support internationalisation for higher and further education and schools work in Wales.
More broadly, I will look at how we build global opportunities around the cultural assets of Wales such as sports diplomacy, Wales’s leadership in climate, languages, and the Well-being of Future Generations Act. The British Council will continue to support the Welsh Government in its international ambitions with a particular focus this year on the Wales in France Year which has just launched.
“As a young girl growing up in Wales, I had access to international opportunities which opened so many doors and broadened my perspective. The British Council offers exactly those type of opportunities, whether it be through learning languages, international partnerships, or providing the platform for Wales to sparkle at big global events”.
Ruth brings with her a wealth of international experience in priority countries for Wales, having led policy and education work in Europe and the MENA region and business development in South Asia. In East Asia and Afghanistan, Ruth set up programmes for the Ministry of Defence, FCDO and EU, working most notably with Myanmar, Vietnam, China, Philippines, and Indonesia.
Welcoming Ruth into the Director role, Rob Humphreys, Chair of the British Council Wales advisory committee, and Chair, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales said:
“We are delighted to welcome Ruth into this important role. Ruth has longstanding connections with Wales and has a reputation for delivering work internationally that creates lasting value for those parts of the world she has worked in. I’ve no doubt she will take forward the work of the British Council, working alongside its many partners and the Welsh Government, and will make a very significant contribution to the internationalisation of education and arts in Wales in the coming years.”
