Laurence Bristow-Smith comes from Hastings on the south coast of England. He was educated at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1980 he took his newly-minted Ph.D. and became first a Maître de Conférénces and then an Educational Adviser for the Moroccan Government.

In 1985 he joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office where he learnt Chinese and was sent to China just in time for Tiananmen Square. Returning to the UK after working in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, he transferred to the Department of Trade & Industry, specialising in the electricity and water industries and also in the decentralising ex-socialist economies. During this period, he worked and travelled across most parts of Europe and Asia, usually finding himself sent where there was some kind of trouble. Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo all featured.

In 2000, he changed direction and moved to Norway as Head of the Trade & Investment Department at the British Embassy in Oslo. He was appointed Deputy Director General of Trade & Investment for Italy in August 2005 and became Consul General and Director General for Trade and Investment in November 2007. His main objection to Milan is that he cannot go sailing.