Meet British Consul-General Annabelle Malins

Written by Melinda Ennis-Roughton Wednesday, March 10 2010

Annabelle Malins, British Consul-General, Atlanta

During the height of its world dominion, it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. The same could be said today of the empire’s Annabelle Malins.

As British consul-general, Atlanta, she acts on behalf of her country and her Majesty the Queen overseeing a six-state Southeastern region of the United States to promote economic development, scientific innovation, and best practices between the two nations. Her office also represents the interests of British expatriates who reside in the area that includes Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

She is the mother of two sons (a teenager and college student in Glasgow, Scotland), the wife of an agronomist (agriculture expert), and an expert herself on the international agricultural industry. With all of that, it’s doubtful that the sun ever sets on Malins.

Having arrived in Atlanta last September from her previous position as the consul general-science and innovation for the San Francisco British consulate, she is the first woman to assume leadership of the Atlanta post.

“Women diplomats are still novel,” Malins says, “although our government is committed to changing that. Today, about one in five of our senior management team is a woman, and we have grown from 17 women heads out of 183 posts in 2006 to 23 in 2008.” According to Malins, those numbers are typical of most Western countries.

No woman was appointed head of a British diplomatic post before the early 1970s; and even then, married women were not allowed. “Any woman who got married had to resign,” Malins says. “The marriage ban was rescinded in 1972, but the first married woman consulate head wasn’t until 1987.”

Still, when considering the wide-ranging duties, the transatlantic travel, and the continual transfers from one global post to the next, the life of a diplomat poses logistical challenges to any marriage, whether the spouse is a man or a woman.

Malins and her husband have been navigating that path since she joined the British diplomatic corps in 1999. However, her globe-trotting expertise was honed in her prior 20-year career as a consultant supporting the development of burgeoning international agricultural markets to private sector industries. “From cut roses in Zambia to mange tout-growers in Zimbabwe, I helped small farmers learn how to bring their products to market,” she says. (By the way, “mange tout” is Brit-speak for snow peas.)

She was often away from her family for six weeks or more at a time. “I would be in fabulous places in Africa or India, but wishing my family were there,” says Malins. Ironically, her life as an international diplomat provides more family togetherness and less travel, although she and her family are now global nomads subject to a move with each new post.

From 1999 to 2005, Malins’s introductory diplomatic assignment was on home turf in London as a first secretary, leading teams in exploring solutions for a diverse array of global concerns from environmental policies to human rights initiatives. Meanwhile, her husband worked in a busy and demanding career as an agronomist, and they both reared their two young sons.

Transfer to America and San Francisco with her first international diplomatic post in 2005 meant many family negotiations that impacted her husband’s work (he’s currently a consultant) and her children’s school life. Her 16-year-old son is now a sophomore at Galloway, a private school in Atlanta. “I’ve struggled all through my life with balance, and it doesn’t get any easier. Survival depends on a supportive family,” she says.

Also critical to her success is her belief that her work is making a difference in the world. Citing diplomatic role models such as Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton, Malins (and her government) are especially dedicated to global issues involving women and their importance in changing the old world order. “Women have historically been the cultivators and harvesters of society,” Malins says. She stresses the need to empower women in places such as Afghanistan, where they can be a life-changing force in a new society. Yet, as a seasoned diplomat, she also cautions that change must be accomplished with care to “be respectful of local culture.”

Working with her almost exclusively female team in Atlanta, she is enthusiastic about her new home and responsibilities, which include opportunities to share her nation’s innovations. In California, Malins worked with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on an important climate change initiative. “The U.K. has been a leader in clean technology and creating a low carbon economy,” she says. “The California government was very interested in hearing about our successes and learning from our experiences. Part of our mission is an exchange of information and technology that benefits both countries.”

Admitting that many Europeans have a sketchy knowledge of the American South, Malins describes Atlanta as an “exciting, dynamic, undiscovered jewel” with “fantastic research facilities such as Georgia Tech and the CDC.” She is already working with the CDC and Emory University on a workshop called “The Aging Brain,” which involves the impact of the world’s accelerated aging population on business and industry.

To escape her day-to-day duties and responsibilities, she relaxes with that time-honored English custom, country walks. But her ultimate job is to remind Americans that the United Kingdom is much more than its old traditions and “to share the word about the Britain of today.”

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A veteran of the marketing/advertising business, Melinda Ennis-Roughton is the principal and owner of an Atlanta-based marketing firm called MelWorks Inc., and a freelance writer specializing in women’s issues and film criticism. She was an on-going contributing film critic for the Atlanta Journal Constitution from 2004-2007.

Her career highlights include the position of Executive Director/Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for Brand Atlanta, which was responsible for marketing the city under Shirley Franklin’s administration. She served as Global CMO for Church's Chicken, supervising marketing direction, from China to Costa Rica. And her career also includes executive positions at Atlanta ad agencies, including Fitzgerald & Co. Ennis-Roughton began her career with Arby’s Restaurants, where she stayed for ten years, eventually rising to the position of senior vice president, marketing and was the first female vice president of the organization.