General Sir Adrian Bradshaw

Former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO

General Sir Adrian Bradshaw joined the British Army in 1980 and has served worldwide in armour, as a helicopter pilot and in other specialist roles, commanding troops on operations at most ranks up to General. After service in the Cold War, his operational experience has included Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan and a number of other theatres.

He has commanded an Armoured Battlegroup, an Armoured Brigade and Division, the UK Land Forces and was Deputy Commander of the 140,000 strong NATO-led Force in Afghanistan. He completed his Regular service as Britain’s most senior officer in NATO as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 2014-17. In recent years he has served as a fixed wing pilot in the RAF Reserve in the rank of Flying Officer.

He is Honorary Colonel of the Artist’s Rifles, a UK Reserve Battalion, and he regularly chairs private conferences attended by Heads of State and Government abroad to improve Counter-Extremism strategy. He lectures on strategy and regularly speaks to business and other audiences.

He is now Governor of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and until recently served as Chairman of BLESMA, the UK charity for limbless ex-Service members. He has been a Visiting Defence Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford (2011) and is Senior Associate Fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a defence thinktank in London. He is also a Visiting Professor at King’s College London, where he lectures on Defence Strategy.

He has degrees in Agriculture, Defence Studies and International Relations.