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The outgoing ambassador recalled that he arrived in Hungary in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and at the tail end of Brexit. From 2022 onwards, the war in Ukraine “dominated” events. With general elections due in the spring of next year, “life in Hungary is going to become even more eventful in the next few months or so,” he predicted.
Fox had a formal event to bid farewell to diplomatic and government figures on Sep. 9. This event represented “business, friends, journalists. It’s slightly less formal, it’s a range of people I’ve always been open with, people whose company I’ve always enjoyed.”
He said his commercial contacts had been “really useful in the sense of letting me know, from a different perspective, what’s going on.” He gave special thanks to the British Chamber of Commerce in Hungary.
The ambassador will leave Hungary on Sep. 24 and retire from the diplomatic service on Nov. 1, bringing a 38-year career to a close.
“I would not have changed anything for the world. I’ve traveled around the globe, done so much, met so many interesting people, made so many friends. It’s been simply extraordinary,” he told his guests.
“I’ll miss Hungary. I’ll miss the embassy, especially this beautiful house, which has temporarily been my home. But above all, I will miss all of you here.”
Fox will be succeeded as ambassador to Hungary by Justin McKenzie Smith, who will take up his appointment in mid-October, once the President of Hungary, Tamás Sulyok, has accepted his credentials.
McKenzie Smith has been preparing for his role by learning Hungarian since last year. He was most recently (2021-2024) head of the Central Asia and Eastern Neighbourhood Department at the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and before that, was on secondment to the Scottish government for a year.
The incoming ambassador is not unknown to the region; from 2016-2020, he was based in Tbilisi, as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Georgia. Other previous overseas postings have included Mexico City (2011-2015, where he was deputy head of mission at the embassy), New York (2004-2008, as first secretary at the U.K. Mission to the United Nations), and Moscow (1996-1999 as second secretary at the embassy). He joined the FCDO in 1994.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of September 19, 2025.
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