Antonia Romeo is not a typical civil servant, according to almost everyone who has worked with or met her in a professional context.
Charming, ambitious and not afraid to publicise her own achievements, Romeo was on the shortlist to be cabinet secretary a year ago when Keir Starmer opted instead for a classic “Sir Humphrey” choice in Chris Wormald.
But with Wormald now forced out, the permanent secretary of the Home Office finds herself back at the top of the list of appointable candidates and the frontrunner to succeed him.
Whitehall sources said earlier this week that Romeo’s appointment was the most likely option but “not nailed on” because No 10 “still don’t know what they want”. It is understood, however, that Downing Street very much intends to appoint her, subject to the civil service commissioner’s approval of the process.
One senior person who has worked with Romeo, 51, says she is “clearly an outstanding candidate and would be a good choice for Starmer … she’s full of ideas”.
She has clearly impressed the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who also worked with her at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
At the same time, some senior civil servants give a slightly disapproving murmur about Romeo’s tendency towards self-promotion, noting that she has her detractors as well as her supporters. As one put it: “She would not be a risk-free choice.”
The scepticism about her comes from the more traditional corners of the civil service, where eyebrows have been raised about smiling social media content covering her activities as a permanent secretary and posts on X about the MoJ Christmas tree at a time when the court service was in crisis.
She is more outward-facing than almost all of her peers, not shy of attending events where members of the media could be present, and good at networking internally within the civil service.
“She goes to parties and looks like she’s enjoying herself, in contrast with the vast majority of permanent secretaries I’ve known,” said one Whitehall insider.
This approachability is deeply counter to the invisible nature of much of the civil service, but may be what Starmer wants this time as he seeks someone to shake Whitehall out of what he has described as a “tepid bath of managed decline”.
On the surface, Romeo’s career has followed a very conventional trajectory through the ranks of the permanent secretaries. She attended Westminster school and Oxford University, then spent a brief stint working for the management consulting company Oliver Wyman before joining the civil service as a principal private secretary.
She rose steadily through the ranks, becoming permanent secretary at the Department for International Development and the MoJ, and spent time as consul general in New York.
During her stint in the US, she was charged with promoting UK trade and hosted a series of parties for celebrity figures including Alexa Chung, Calvin Klein, Joanna Lumley and Anna Wintour.
She was criticised in a series of media reports for overspending on the role but a Cabinet Office investigation found no case to answer. Her former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, Simon McDonald, raised concerns on Wednesday that there should be “more due diligence” over the matter.
But responding to it at the time, the head of the FDA union, Dave Penman, said there was a “whiff of misogyny about it”.
“If you are the trade ambassador for the east coast of the United States, then it’s creative industries, it’s fashion, that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “That’s the sort of person you want rather than someone who’s going to be sitting in their apartment seven nights a week.”
It was subsequently during her time at the MoJ that she earned respect within the civil service for having told Dominic Raab that he must treat staff professionally and with respect amid unhappiness about his return after allegations of bullying behaviour towards officials.
She has also built a reputation as being committed to equality, serving as a “civil service gender inclusion champion” in a move that has led the Daily Mail to call her Whitehall’s “queen of woke”.
In a civil service leadership lecture in 2022, Romeo gave a sense of how she operates. “At its heart, leadership is about people and creating the conditions for them to thrive,” she said.
“In my view, leadership over the next five years will be bringing in the best talent, creating genuine progression and opportunities for that talent and setting a culture of purpose.
“Ultimately, it’s about creating a culture in which colleagues can take pride, a work ethic characterised by the desire to serve the public and, in everything we do, leading with purpose.”
With Starmer having talked about wanting to “rewire” the civil service completely, Romeo would have the difficult job as cabinet secretary of carrying that out while maintaining morale that has been dented by No 10’s lack of decisiveness about policy and ruthlessness in relation to Wormald.
Her reputation for being warm and forthright is what has apparently impressed Mahmood at the MoJ and the Home Office, where Romeo has spent the last year getting to grips with the small boat crisis and changes to the immigration system.
Twice shortlisted for the role of cabinet secretary before but overlooked in favour of male candidates, it appears her combination of diplomacy and decisiveness is what Starmer is looking for next.