Our Founder

Jonathan Powell was the chief British government negotiator on Northern Ireland from 1997-2007 while serving as Chief of Staff to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and was a key architect of the 1999 Good Friday Agreement. After leaving government, Jonathan founded Inter Mediate in 2011 to share lessons from the Northern Ireland peace talks and help other leaders navigating similar dilemmas.

With Inter Mediate, he has played a central role in further successful peace accords, supporting negotiations to end the Basque conflict and demobilize ETA, serving as a peace advisor to President Santos of Colombia on his Nobel prize-winning settlement with the FARC, and working alongside Mozambique’s President Nyusi to end the country’s long civil war with RENAMO through a landmark agreement signed in summer 2020.

In 2024, Jonathan returned to government to serve as UK National Security Advisor.