Antonia Romeo
| Dame Antonia Romeo link LinkedIn (Civil servant) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Antonia Rebecca Caroline Angharad Catherine Rice-Evans 20 October 1974 |
| Alma mater | Brasenose College (Oxford),Columbia University,London School of Economics |
| Children | 3 |
| Spouse | John Romeo |
Antonia Romeo is a British civil servant with a professional economist background and an early career in the private sector at strategic consultancy firm Oliver Wyman.[1]
Dame Antonia was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service in February 2026.[2]
She has previously held permanent secretary roles at the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for International Trade. Before that, she was the British Consul-General in New York for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and concurrently director-general for economic and commercial affairs in the USA.
From Home Office to Cabinet Secretary
In March 2025, Romeo was appointed permanent secretary of the Home Office, serving Home Secretaries Yvette Cooper and Shabana Mahmood.
After Simon Case resigned as Cabinet Secretary at the end of 2024, Romeo was one of four appointable candidates shortlisted by an expert panel. Prime Minister Keir Starmer chose Chris Wormald for the position in December 2024. After Wormald's resignation in February 2026, Romeo was tipped to be appointed to the role.
Thorough due diligence required
Lord McDonald told Channel 4 News:
“The due diligence needs to be thorough. If the candidate mentioned in the media is the one, in my view, the due diligence has some way still to go.”[3]
Subsequently, after this, a second official came forward to warn against appointing her as Cabinet Secretary. This contradicts a government press statement saying that only one person raised concerns about her behaviour during her time as Consul-General in New York.[4]
On 19 February 2026 Romeo was formally appointed as Cabinet Secretary. Unusually the announcement of her appointment included an "Appointment process" section.
On 22 February 2026, the Telegraph reported that Cabinet Office officials had broken into a safe containing the bullying report and destroyed all the papers relating to the confidential investigation.[5]
Palantir contract
Acting for the Department of International Trade in 2019, Romeo brokered a series of engagements between Louis Mosley (Palantir UK), Lord David Prior, then Chair of NHS England, and NHSX CEO, Matthew Gould. The subsequent NHS contract with Palantir under then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, led to a successful lawsuit against the UK government. The lawsuit was brought by openDemocracy and tech abuse campaigners Foxglove, as a result of a lack of transparency in setting up the contract and redactions of the sources used by the data store.[6]
References
- ↑ "Dame Antonia Romeo"
- ↑ "Starmer appoints Antonia Romeo as head of civil service"
- ↑ "Former top civil servant warns ‘more due diligence’ to be done over replacement of Chris Wormald"
- ↑ "Second person contacts Cabinet Office to warn against appointment of Dame Antonia Romeo"
- ↑ "Cabinet Office destroyed bullying report into Starmer’s new top civil servant"
- ↑ "We’ve won our lawsuit over Matt Hancock’s £23m NHS data deal with Palantir"
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