Sword Active Risk, a supplier of specialist risk management software and services, has announced that Stella Rimington, former Director General of M15 and acclaimed author will be the key note speaker at the ARM Global Conference in London.

The London Conference takes place on October 18, at the Dorchester, Mayfair, London. The second in the tour which kicks off in Washington DC, September 19 and concludes in Sydney, Australia on November 1.

Thought to be the inspiration for the fictitious James Bond character M (as played by Dame Judi Dench), Rimington worked at MI5 from 1969 to 1996. She worked in all the main fields of the Service’s responsibilities – counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism – and became successively Director of all three branches.

She was appointed Director-General of MI5 in 1992. She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment.

During her time as DG Rimington pursued a policy of greater openness for MI5, giving the 1994 Dimbleby Lecture on BBC TV and several other public lectures and publishing a booklet about the Service. She was made a Dame Commander of the Bath (DCB) in 1995 and has been awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws by the Universities of Nottingham and Exeter. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she has become a Non-Executive Director of Marks & Spencer, BG Group plc and Whitehead Mann GKR. She is Chairman of the Institute of Cancer Research and a member of the Board of the Royal Marsden NHS Trust.