Baroness Valerie Amos (born 1954) is a British Labour politician, diplomat, and academic trailblazer. Born in Guyana, she moved to the UK in 1963 and studied sociology at the University of Warwick. Amos, created a life peer in 1997, became the UK’s first Black woman Cabinet minister as Secretary of State for International Development in 2003. She later served as Leader of the House of Lords, British High Commissioner to Australia, and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. In 2015, she became the first Black woman to lead a UK university as Director of SOAS, and in 2020, the first to head an Oxford college. Her career embodies global leadership, diversity, and public service.

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