Rob Wainwright

Sir Robert Mark Wainwright KCMG (born 17 September 1967) is a British civil servant. He was the director of Europol from 16 April 2009 until 1 May 2018. Wainwright began his career as an intelligence analyst with MI5. He later became a liaison officer to Europol, head of the British national Europol unit and the UK board Europol member. He was appointed Director of International Affairs of the UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) in 2003 and head of the international department of the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in 2006. In April 2009, he became the Director of Europol serving until May 2018 when he was succeeded by Catherine De Bolle.

Career Wainwright first worked for the United Kingdom's Security Service (MI5) as an intelligence analyst.

From 2000 to 2003, he was the UK Management Board member at Europol and a UK Liaison Officer. At the same time, he was Head of the British Europol National Unit in London.

In 2003, he was appointed Director of International Affairs of the UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), where he was responsible for international operations and for the development and implementation of a British strategy against illegal immigration. From 2006, Wainwright held the post of head of the international department of the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

In April 2009, Wainwright was appointed Director of Europol, the European police office, being the first director who did not have a police background or come from a national police force.

In 2018, Wainwright was knighted for his services to policing and security. The same year, he was tapped to run Deloitte's European cyber practice.

He has said society accepts that intercepting private phone calls is "a reasonable way to run a democracy".