Stella Rimington joined MI5 in 1965 and during her thirty-year career she worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities –counter-subversion, counter-espionage, and counter-terrorism–and successively became Director of all three branches. 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. Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she became a Non-Executive Director of Marks and Spencer and published her autobiography, Open Secret, in the UK. She is the author of Secret Asset and At Risk.