Making an international impact with Tammy Sandhu MBE

Having served in Iraq and Kenya, and with previous diplomatic postings in Morocco, Brussels and India, Tammy Sandhu MBE (UCL International Public Policy MSc 2005) is no stranger to adapting to new countries and cultures.

She has worked across political and economic affairs, bilateral trade and investment, and on government responses to crises, including high-profile kidnaps of British nationals overseas. She has worked as a crisis manager – trained by the Metropolitan Police and the FBI in hostage negotiation, a government spokesperson , and she led part of the government response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s been an incredible career trajectory so far. And a UCL Master’s degree helped to start it all off.

Pursuing internationalism

“I grew up in Leicester. At 16, I applied for a scholarship for an international school in Hong Kong,” Tammy explains. “I had this feeling that if I stayed in Leicester, I wouldn’t discover what I really want to do.”

Tammy found herself immersed in a United World College school, surrounded by people of 60 different nationalities. This experience cemented her desire for an internationally focused career. During her final year of studying English at the University of Warwick, she applied for a job at the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO), but was unsuccessful. After working for her parents’ business in retail for a year, she decided to pursue an international career once again.

“I had this sudden realisation that I needed a Master’s to do what I wanted to do,” she says. “I chose UCL because it was a really practical course, you got good contact time, and you learned incredibly helpful research methods.”  

Route into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Tammy says it was the things she learned through the Master’s that helped her get a job at the FCO in 2005. “Being able to talk about global economics and politics with a certain level of understanding, and with credibility, was really important early on in my career,” she says.

So what does it take to succeed in this line of work? “Diplomacy is a contact sport,” Tammy says. “It’s all about personal relationships. You need a love of people, an interest in the world, and good communication skills.” She says that influencing skills, negotiation skills and strategic thinking have all been central to her success too.

While some individuals in this field specialise in a global region, a language or a specific skill, Tammy describes herself as a generalist. “I’ve done a range of jobs, and I’ve done that very deliberately,” she says. “If you think about government as a business, my path has been to learn the entire business.”

Tammy’s ultimate ambition is to become an ambassador. “From my experience, the greatest ambassadors are the ones that know the country they work in, understand the UK exceptionally well, and also understand how government works.”  

Furthering racial equality and inclusion

There are some global challenges that Tammy feels particularly passionate about. After a stretch of serving the British government in India, “which felt really significant, as a British Asian woman”, Tammy was elected Chair of FCO’s BAME Committee in 2020.

Having recently lost her mother, she wondered if it was something she was able to take on. She says: “It was actually one of the things that helped me. It allowed me to put my grief into something really positive, that almost directly linked to my mum.” Tammy’s mother was born in Pakistan in 1947 – the year of partition. As a newborn in a refugee situation, her family carried her on foot over the border to India.

Being elected to this voluntary position to support the staff network at the FCO was something Tammy “really cared about”. When the George Floyd murder happened, “it changed everything about the role.” Instead of advocating for staff issues, Tammy was asked to be directly involved with the official response of the FCO – later the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

Tammy advised on the response both externally and internally. She became the first and only Chair of the BAME Committee to be paid for the role, and she was involved in the UK’s first statement on race at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. In 2021, she was awarded an MBE for her service to Diversity and Inclusion.

“One of my proudest career moments was when I put out a joint statement with the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the FCO,” Tammy says. “I started my career being quite idealistic, thinking I wanted to change some big issues in the world. This is the first moment when I felt I actually could.”

Championing modern Britain in San Francisco

Tammy’s current role as His Majesty’s Consul General in San Francisco – which she’s held since October 2023 – has seen her equality, diversity and inclusion work continue. She’s been instrumental in creating a partnership between the consulate and San Francisco Pride, and she’s worked on investment opportunities for black female founders. “By breaking down barriers to business, we’re also showcasing the UK as a diverse place to live, work and visit,” she explains. “Part of my job is to project a really modern UK.”

She runs a trade and investment team, and she’s supporting British companies to export to California and the Pacific North West. She’s getting capital from Silicon Valley into the UK too. She also runs a number of policy teams, who are working on policy issues such as how to regulate AI, how to take the opportunities from AI to transform public services in the UK, and how to ensure technology companies are being responsible in terms of child online safety.

Tammy is also responsible for the signing of some mutual recognition agreements, so British people working in certain professions can have their qualifications recognised when working for British companies in the United States – and vice versa. And she’s working on climate change initiatives to help California transition to offshore wind power, and to support fossil-fuel dependent states to transition away from coal. The diverse fields she works in are connected by their significance.

A long way from UCL

“The huge issues and questions are increasingly the ones I care most about,” she says. “I’m thinking about how we’re going to change things over the course of time. What legacy are we going to leave?”  

Although she’s physically a long way from London and her career trajectory has seen her work in a wide variety of locations and initiatives, studying the International Public Policy MSc at UCL in 2005, was what kickstarted Tammy’s career. “During that university journey, I was surrounded by a really high calibre of internationalism,” she says. Her peers went on to work for the World Bank, the BBC, and to set up international businesses. “They’ve all kept internationalism in their lives, which speaks volumes.”

Tammy encourages anyone interested in a similar career to “absolutely go for it.” She’s a first-generation university student, and didn’t know anything about this career type when she was younger.

“What we look for is possibly not what everybody thinks we look for,” she explains. “Good judgment, problem solving skills and communication skills are key. We’re not expecting you to be a Middle East expert, or to know the protocol of hosting a reception for the Guyanese Ambassador. You’ll learn everything you need to know along the way.”