Gavin Iley

Gavin Iley is Head of International Crisis Management & Resilience at the Met Office where he is responsible for managing the Met Office input into overseas emergencies and humanitarian crisis (operations & policy development).

Recently this has meant supporting the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in their humanitarian response to the Refugee Crisis in SE Europe and the World Food Programme Air drops into eastern Syria. Gavin’s 29 year career with the Met Office started straight from school when he joined the Met Office in 1987 as an instrument technician, before quickly progressing into software development, project and programme management and international development. Prior to taking on his current role Gavin lead the delivery of a number of Met Service capacity building projects in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Kosova and Ethiopia.

In 2015 Gavin led the Met Office delegation at the World Conference of Disaster Reduction in Sendai (Japan) and also supported colleagues from the Met Office and DFiD in the development and delivery of the US / UK Climate Science collaboration agreement which was signed in Washington last year by President Obama’s Special Envoy for Climate Change Dr John Holdren.

Outside of work Gavin is a keen cook and also spends as much time as possible looking after his local cricket pitch in his role as voluntary groundsman.