Richard Paniguian

Sir Richard Leon Paniguian CBE (28 July 1949 – 25 June 2017) worked for British Petroleum from 1971 to 2008, and subsequently as a civil servant, serving from 2008 as Head of the Defence and Security Organisation UK Trade and Investment.

Educated at Westminster, Paniguian studied Arabic at Durham and joined British Petroleum in 1971, posted to Oman, UAE, Iran, the United States, and ultimately serving as President of BP Turkey from 1989 until 1992. During this period he undertook an MBA from INSEAD. He was then appointed Director of BP Europe until 1995, CEO of BP Shipping until 1999, and then BP's Vice President for Gas and Power for the Middle East. In 2002, he became Group Vice President for BP as a whole, where he stayed until his left the firm in 2008, when he joined UK Trade & Investment to head up the Defence and Security Organisation.He left the post in February 2015.

Sir Richard was married to Lady Paniguian (Nil Okan) JP FCIL (Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists), and has two stepsons, Emir and Efe.

Paniguian was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours and was knighted in the 2015 New Year Honours.

Sir Richard died suddenly on 25 June 2017.