The 22 Allies* participating in the NATO Innovation Fund have completed the formation of the Board of Directors. The remaining six Directors were appointed on 27 April 2023.

Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands (Dutch Tech Envoy), Kusti Salm (Permanent Secretary of the Estonian Ministry of Defence), Karl-Christian Agerup (Partner at Antler and co-founder of Northzone Ventures), Ebru Dorman (angel investor from Türkiye), Dr. Ari Kristinn Jónsson (former President of Reykjavik University), and Raj Shah (Founder of Shield Capital and former Managing Partner of the United States’ Defense Innovation Unit) will join Dr. Klaus Hommels, Dame Fiona Murray and Dr. Roberto Cingolani, who were appointed earlier this year.

Together, the nine Directors will play a supervisory and advisory role for the NATO Innovation Fund’s investment management arm. They will work to ensure that the investment strategy is executed successfully and in line with the Fund’s strategic objectives.

Global search firm Egon Zehnder has supported participating Allies and the NATO International Staff in identifying this independent Board of Directors, which hails from esteemed backgrounds in venture capital investment, defence and government, innovation and academia.

The NATO Innovation Fund was launched at the 2022 Madrid Summit and is due to be operational by NATO’s Vilnius Summit in July 2023.

*Belgium; Bulgaria; Czechia; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Slovakia; Spain; Türkiye; United Kingdom

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