Blake was educated at
Roan School for Girls and
Merton College, Oxford, where she gained an
MA degree in ancient and modern history in 1980. She worked as an archaeologist for the
Museum of London,
English Heritage, and the
Greater London Council (GLC) from 1983 to 1987. She joined the
Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1989, where she served as an assistant private secretary to the
Secretary of State for Defence. She left the MoD in 1995 and transferred to the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and was at the UK delegation to
NATO in
Brussels, 1996–99; deputy head of the Eastern Adriatic Department at the FCO 1999–2001; at the embassy in
Washington, D.C., 2001–05; on secondment to the Cabinet Office as Head of Foreign and Development Policy 2006–07; head of the Conflict Group at the FCO 2007–11; deputy
High Commissioner to Pakistan 2011–14. She became
High Commissioner to Bangladesh in January 2016, where, in 2017, she received some criticism for apparently lobbying on behalf of
British American Tobacco, which was at that time in a dispute with the
Bangladeshi government over a £170m claim for unpaid VAT brought by the government of Bangladesh against its subsidiary, BATB. Blake was appointed a Companion of the
Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in the
2018 New Year Honours "for services to British foreign and security policy." She then moved in May 2019 to become
Ambassador to Afghanistan. She was succeeded by
Sir Laurie Bristow in June 2021. In March 2022, the
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office announced that Blake would be the new
Governor of the Falkland Islands and
Commissioner for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, succeeding
Nigel Phillips in July 2022. She was the first female governor of the islands. ==References==