Sir John Scarlett served as Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) from August 2004 to October 2009. He joined SIS in 1971 and over the next 20 years served in Nairobi, Paris and twice in Moscow as well as several assignments in London covering the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. His second time in Moscow (1991-1994) coincided with the end of the USSR and the early years of the Russian Federation. In early September 2001 he retired from SIS on appointment as Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in the UK Cabinet Office. He rejoined SIS as Head of the Service in 2004.

Sir John was born in 1948 in London and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where, in 1970, he was awarded First Class Honours in Modern History. Since leaving SIS he has become a Senior Adviser at Morgan Stanley. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of PricewaterhouseCoopers, London, Swiss Re, Zurich and the Chertoff Group in Washington. He is Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum. Other Trusteeships include the Bletchley Park Trust, the Churchill Centre, Chicago and the Royal Medical Foundation of Epsom College.

Sir John was appointed OBE (Officer of the British Empire) in 1987, CMG (Commander of St Michael and St George) in 2001 and KCMG in 2007.