Sir Simon Mayall

General Sir Simon Mayall is one of the UK’s foremost authorities on the Middle East, with more than four decades of experience advising on the region’s political, military and strategic dynamics.

Commissioned into the British Army after graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, Simon served for 36 years in a career that combined operational command with some of the UK’s most senior defence appointments. He was deployed across Northern Ireland, Cyprus, the Balkans and the Middle East, and held a number of senior leadership roles in the Ministry of Defence, including Assistant Chief of the General Staff, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Operations), and Defence Senior Adviser Middle East. He was knighted in 2014 and retired from the Army the following year.

Since leaving military service, Simon has become a respected commentator and adviser on Middle Eastern affairs, drawing on his deep understanding of the region’s history, politics and religion to provide context and analysis on contemporary geopolitical developments. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and regularly contributes to broadcast and print media.

Simon is the author of two acclaimed books: Soldier in the Sand: A Personal History of the Modern Middle East (2020), which explores the region’s evolution through the story of his own family, and The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate (2024), an examination of the 1,300-year relationship between the Christian and Islamic worlds through a series of defining conflicts.