Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Jayne Brady has appointed Moira Doherty as permanent secretary of The Executive Office.
Doherty has been serving as interim perm sec at the department, which supports Northern Ireland’s first minister and deputy first minister and is the executive’s strategy core, since February.
Her appointment followed an external recruitment competition held late last year, which said the salary range for the role was between £146,469 and £163,267.
Doherty joined NICS in 1999 and has held a range of senior leadership roles across different departments, spanning strategic, operational and community-focused areas.
Most recently she served as deputy director at Northern Ireland’s Department for the Economy. Before that, from 2017 to 2019, she was director of the Department for Infrastructure’s Public Transport Division.
In addition to her NICS work, Doherty is a visiting professor at Ulster University and a member of the steering group for its masters in public administration course.
Doherty succeeded David Malcolm at the helm of The Executive Office, where he had served as interim perm sec since June 2024.
In February, Malcolm was appointed as perm sec at Northern Ireland’s Department of Education.