Prior to arriving in DC, Dame Karen Pierce was the United Kingdom's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York since March 2018. Prior to this role, Dame Karen served as the Director General for Political Affairs and Chief Operating Officer of the Foreign and Commonwealth in London, from 2016. In 2006, Dame Karen moved to New York for the first time to be the Deputy Permanent Representative and Ambassador at the UK Mission to the UN. In 2009, she returned to London to become the Director of South Asia and Afghanistan Department and the UK's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2012, Dame Karen started her second multilateral role, this time in Geneva, where she was the Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UK Mission to the United Nations, World Trade Organization and Other International Organisations until 2015. Between 2015 and 2016 Dame Karen was the UK's Ambassador to Afghanistan.