I am Jessica Hand. I moved to Istanbul with my husband, Bob, and took up my new post as of 19 August 2008. We are very happy to be  living in Istanbul, a city so rich in history and culture. At the end of June 2008 we left Moscow where I had been Director Operations and HM Consul-General.

I joined the Foreign Office in 1985 after graduating from the University of Aberdeen and spending two years as sales manager for a private wine merchant in South Wales. My first overseas posting was to Senegal in 1987, and then from 1990 I worked on multilateral issues in London; first developing and implementing international sanctions regimes against Iraq and Bosnia; and later lifting sanctions from South Africa after Nelson Mandela was elected President:

In 1996 I went as Ambassador to the Republic of Belarus, returning to London in 1999 as Deputy Head of Non-Proliferation Department, focusing on conventional arms controls and the start of international efforts to develop controls on small arms and light weapons.

In 2001 I took a secondment to a NATO military headquarters as Political Adviser to the Commander in Chief. In that role I made my first visit to Istanbul in 2003 - sadly coinciding with the attack on our Consulate-General. Then, at the end of 2004 we moved to Moscow.

Bob is retired from the US Army and is in the final year of his research doctorate in international relations. We share a fascination with other cultures and the influences of history in societies. Bob has a particular facility with learning languages; so although we both plan to learn Turkish, I fully expect him to do so much quicker than me.