Christopher Edward Wollaston MacKenzie Geidt, Baron Geidt, (born 17 August 1961) is a member of the House of Lords, former Courtier and Chairman of the Council of King's College London. He was Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II from 2007 to 2017.
Between 28 April 2021 and 15 June 2022 he was the Independent Adviser on Ministers' Interests to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Early life and education
Born in Marylebone, London, son of magistrates' court chief clerk Mervyn Bernard Geidt (1926–1991) and Diana Cecil MacKenzie (1928-2012), Geidt grew up on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Geidt attended the Dragon School in Oxford and Glenalmond College in Perth and Kinross. He graduated in War Studies from King's College London, and in International Relations from Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of King's College London (FKC), an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple.
Career
British Army
An Army Scholar, Geidt enlisted in the Scots Guards and attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst from 1982 to 1983; he did not pass out and receive a commission as he was invalided from the army. He was later commissioned in the Intelligence Corps, serving in the British Army from 1987 to 1994.
In 1987, Geidt joined the staff of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, becoming an Assistant Director. From 1994 he worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in diplomatic posts in Sarajevo, Geneva and Brussels.
In 1991, Geidt and Anthony de Normann sued the journalist John Pilger and Central Television over the documentary Cambodia: The Betrayal, in which they were accused of being members of the SAS secretly engaged in the training of the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia. Geidt and de Normann accepted "very substantial" damages and all costs. In a related libel action Ann Clwyd MP, then shadow minister for overseas development, issued a public apology to Geidt and de Normann and agreed to meet all legal costs.
During and after the war in Bosnia (1992–1995), Geidt was deployed to liaise with the Bosnian Serb leadership, including Radovan Karadžić, Momčilo Krajišnik and General Ratko Mladić, all later indicted for war crimes. He assisted the High Representative, Carl Bildt, in negotiating with Serbian President Slobodan Milošević for the removal of Karadžić from the presidency of Republika Srpska in 1996.
Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II
Geidt was recruited to the Royal Household in 2002 as Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen. He was promoted to Deputy Private Secretary in 2005. He then served as the Queen's Private Secretary from 2007 to 2017.
During his time as Private Secretary, Geidt was also Keeper of the Royal Archives and a Trustee of the Royal Collection and of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Trust (later the Queen's Trust). He remains a Trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and is also Chairman of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust.
As Private Secretary, Geidt was a member of the so-called 'golden triangle' of senior British officials – the others being the Cabinet Secretary and the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister – with key responsibilities in the event of a hung parliament in the United Kingdom, as happened in 2010.
After ten years as Private Secretary, Geidt stepped down in October 2017 and was succeeded by Sir Edward Young. He was subsequently created Baron Geidt, of Crobeg in the County of Ross and Cromarty, and sits as a Crossbench peer in the House of Lords. In early March 2019, he was appointed a Permanent Lord-in-waiting.
Geidt is the Honorary Regimental Colonel of the London Scottish Regiment, having succeeded George, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen in 2016.
Oman, BAE Systems, Schroders, King's College London
Geidt became chair of the Council of King's College London in 2016, took an advisory role in the arms, security and aerospace company BAE Systems until April 2021, and serves as chair of a board in the asset management company Schroders. According to the diaries of Sir Alan Duncan, Geidt worked for the Sultan of Oman. In November 2021, academic staff at King’s College London wrote publicly complaining that Geidt had failed to disclose and manage conflicts of interest, breaching university policy. This included failure to state in the register of interests that he had been working for the Sultan of Oman, or manage conflicts with BAE Systems and Schroders, as the university had investments in BAE Systems up to 2020 and in Schroders, and had ‘multiple partnerships’ with Oman state bodies in medical care and dentistry.