Great thanks to John Somers

Great thanks to John Somers, who has just completed a superb four-year term as First Secretary for Scottish Affairs at the UK Embassy in Beijing. He supported us magnificently.

I am delighted to let you know that John has been appointed Principal Private Secretary to the First Minister. Huge congratulations to John, who is starting work today!

John's successor in Beijing is Martin McDermott. Martin is already hard at work on his brief and we wish him a successful and happy tenure.

Hannah Graham, who served so well in the Asia Pacific Team at the Scottish Government and was so often at SCEN events, has moved to a new posting. We wish her well and thank her warmly. Katie Miller will now work in Geoff Pope's Asia Pacific team: she will be coming with Geoff to the Asia Connection meeting in Edinburgh on the afternoon of Thursday 9 February. Just email me if you would like to come. We look forward to working with Katie.