“GCHQ is an example for the rest of the public service… here is a case where civil servants have made technology sing.”

In 1996 David Omand faced his first major leadership challenge: he had become the director of GCHQ and was charged with continuing the intelligence agency’s post-Cold War programme of technological transformation and reform.

In this episode David discusses his experience of being “the young man sent from London to destroy the organisation”, the overlooked concept of followership and the importance of having a narrative.

He also explores his time as permanent secretary of the Home Office, reflecting on why he put so much store by safe spaces, how a life-threatening diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma changed his approach to work, and becoming the UK’s first Security and Intelligence Coordinator.