Vice Admiral Charles Style was born in 1954 and joined the Royal Navy twenty years later after Cambridge University. He has spent most of his career at sea, including early appointments in the Antarctic Patrol Ship HMS ENDURANCE and the Royal Yacht BRITANNIA.  Between 1992 and 1993 he was Chief of Staff to the Commander UK Task Group before promotion to Captain and a period as deputy to the Royal Navy’s Sea Training Admiral.  He has commanded five ships: the patrol boat HMS SANDPIPER, the minesweeper HMS WOTTON, two frigates HM Ships ANDROMEDA and CAMPBELTOWN, and the aircraft carrier and Fleet Flagship HMS ILLUSTRIOUS.  These were variously engaged in training, fishery protection, patrol tasks, merchant ship accompaniment,maritime security, air operations over Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, and embargo enforcement in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Adriatic and Gulf, where Charles Style also commanded the Royal Navy’s Armilla Task Group.  He was appointed CBE in the operational honours list of October 2002, and went back to sea during 2004 and 2005 as Commander UK Maritime Force, which included a year as the Commander of NATO’s Maritime High Readiness Force.

Charles Style also served in the Ministry of Defence dealing with Naval Plans and budgets from 1990 to 1992, as the Principal Staff Officer to the Chief of Defence Staff from 1997 to 1998, on promotion to Rear Admiral in January 2002 as the Equipment Capability Manager for Precision Attack,  and most recently from 2006 to 2007 as Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Commitments) in the rank of Vice Admiral.  In this role he was the Director of UK Military Operations, Head of the Defence Crisis Management Organisation, and responsible for strategic readiness for future operations.  Having been a member of the Royal College of Defence Studies in Belgrave Square in London in 1999, he became its Commandant on retirement from active Naval service in January 2008.