LONDON, UK - Catherine Ashton made a spectacular rise through British and European politics by becoming the consumate low-key negotiator.

Named on Thursday as the European Union's new foreign policy supremo, Ashton ran a local health authority, went on to herd fussy British lords and was last year sent to Brussels to negotiate banana imports from Latin America and free trade with the United States and China.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland, to give her her formal title as a member of Britain's House of Lords, has impressed nearly everyone in Brussels by the way she has mastered the European Commission establishment, diplomats said.

"In the time she has been here she has created a very strong impression she is someone who is well respected in the corridors of Brussels," said a British official, predicting "she will be a big player".

The job for which she is now tipped is on another another level - giving divided Europe a voice on the world stage against the US superpower and the rising giants of China, India and Brazil.

Ashton was born in Upholland, northwest England, in 1956 and studied economics at the University of London.

She worked for pressure groups and spent six years as director of Business In The Community, encouraging companies to implement greater equality and diversity.

Ashton was also chairman of a county health authority between 1998 to 2001.

She was named to the House of Lords, Britain's unelected second chamber, as a life peer by the ruling Labour party in 1999 and from there took on serious politics when made an education minister in 2001 before stints at the departments of constitutional affairs and justice.

She was named Leader of the House of Lords - in charge of steering government legislation through the chamber - in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's first Cabinet in 2007.

Her tasks included helping to secure parliament's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which set up the foreign policy supremo and presidency.

When Peter Mandelson quit as European trade commissioner to return to the British cabinet in 2008, it was reported that Brown was asked to send a woman to replace him to improve the European Commission's gender balance.

Struggling in opinion polls, Brown did not want to send an elected lawmaker from the House of Commons because that could trigger a by-election defeat, so he turned to Ashton, the Times newspaper reported.

Ashton is married to Peter Kellner, a political commentator and president of British polling firm YouGov. She has three stepchildren and two children.