Asan Plenum

Amb. John Everard is a former UK Ambassador to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) who has served in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for twenty-seven years, working in Austria, Bosnia, Chile, and China. He served as Ambassador to Belarus, to Uruguay, and finally to the DPRK from 2006 to 2008. During his time in DPRK, he attended meetings with the North Korean government officials and provided significant reports back to the British government on political developments. Amb. Everard was then appointed as the Pantech Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University (2010-2011). During his time at Stanford, he also wrote a book, Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea (The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2012) discussing his experiences of North Korea. From 2011 to 2012, he coordinated the UN Security Council Panel of Experts on North Korea. Since 2012, he has written extensively for the media, broadcast, and lectured, both on Korea and on international affairs generally. Amb. Everard studied French, German, and Chinese at Cambridge University and then studied history and economics at Beijing University. He also holds an M.B.A. from Manchester Business School.