India, June 16 -- MI6 will be led by a woman for the first time in Britain's foreign intelligence service's 116-year history. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer named Blaise Metreweli as the first female head of the Secret Intelligence Service.

The 47-year-old is a career intelligence officer and currently the spy agency's head of technology.

Metreweli joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1999. She has spent most of her career working in European or Middle Eastern countries.

She is known as 'Q'. According to a 2009 Guardian report, an MI6 officer said the letter 'Q' stands for someone in the agency who heads a team "responsible for innovative technology and gimmicks and gadgets and things like that."

After assuming the position, her ...