Richard Peter Ralph CMG CVO (born 27 April 1946) is an English former diplomat who was ambassador to Peru and then chairman of a mining company that operates in Peru.
Ralph was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, and Edinburgh University.
While Ralph was ambassador to Romania, the government sold its national steel firm, Sidex, to a company owned by Lakshmi Mittal, a major donor to the British Labour party which was then in power under Tony Blair as prime minister.
Ralph was said to have a mistress who was employed by a legal firm which worked on the steel deal,[1] and he had previously worked alongside Jonathan Powell, who later became Blair's chief of staff, at the British Embassy in Washington.
[2] Ralph left the diplomatic service in 2006 and became executive chairman of Monterrico Metals plc, a publicly listed company with a copper mine at Rio Blacos in Peru.