Dame Stella Rimington, the first woman to head the U.K. domestic intelligence service MI5, has died at the age of 90, her family announced. Rimington led the agency from 1992 to 1996 and was the first MI5 chief to be publicly identified on appointment. During her tenure, she oversaw MI5’s move to Thames House, expanded the service’s responsibility for countering Irish republican terrorism in Great Britain and began releasing historical files to the National Archives in a push for greater transparency. She joined MI5 full-time in 1969 after earlier clerical work at the British embassy in New Delhi, and rose through counter-espionage and counter-terrorism roles before becoming deputy director general in 1991. Current MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum said Rimington “broke through long-standing barriers” and ushered in “a new era of openness and transparency” for the agency. Rimington, widely cited as the inspiration for Dame Judi Dench’s character ‘M’ in the James Bond films, later authored a series of spy novels.