Vijay Rangarajan

Vijay Rangarajan is Director General, Americas and Overseas Territories at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). Vijay was the UK Ambassador to Brazil from June 2017 until August 2020.

From 2013 to 2016 he was Europe Director in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, responsible for work on the UK EU referendum, associated negotiations, and wider EU policy such as on energy, social security and foreign policy.

Before that, he worked in the UK Ministry of Justice and Cabinet Office on political and constitutional reform of the UK – running elections, Parliament and the development of devolution in the UK. This involved establishing the UK Supreme Court and Parliamentary Standards Authority, and the reform of electoral registration. He then set up the FCO’s Multilateral Policy Directorate, responsible for the UN, Council of Europe,Commonwealth, OSCE, and work on international human rights and conflict issues, and negotiated major changes to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Earlier, he worked in the UK mission in Brussels on trade policy and political affairs, later leading the Justice and Home Affairs section, covering immigration, asylum, data-sharing, counter-terrorism, civil and criminal law. Vijay was Deputy Ambassador at the British Embassy in Mexico from 2003 to 2006.

Vijay is married and has 2 teenage sons. His academic background is scientific: a natural sciences degree, Masters in maths, and astrophysics PhD at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His interests are singing, cooking, cycling, flying kites and science fiction.