Strategic Guidance
The Advisory Board of the Brussels Defence Forum provides the strategic thinking and network for our agenda. Comprising senior defence officials and policy experts, the Board ensures that our dialogue remains grounded in the highest levels of international security and operational readiness.
Advisory Board
Jedidiah Royal
Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Jedidiah Royal was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs from 2022 to 2026, responsible for defense policy and defense relations across the region. He has also served as Deputy Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, as Defense Counselor at the U.S. Mission to NATO in Belgium, and as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. He has served on the National Security Council and as Director for Strategic Advice embedded in the Australian Department of Defence. He is currently in private practice supporting defense industry collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region.
Raquel Garbers
Former Director General for Strategic Defence Policy
Raquel Garbers is the former Director General for Strategic Defence Policy at the Canadian Department of National Defence, where she was principal architect of Canada's defence policy, led strategic work on the future of Canada-U.S. relations, and represented Canada at NATO and the Five Eyes. She also served as a visiting practitioner on hybrid warfare with the U.S. Department of Defense in Hawaii, and co-led the Canada at Economic War program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. With nearly three decades in Canada's defence, security, and intelligence community, she specializes in hybrid threats to military operations and the defence industrial base, particularly hostile economic statecraft. She is a Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and sits on the Global Advisory Board of the European Values Center.
Dr. Peter Roberts
Former Director of Military Sciences at RUSI
Dr. Peter Roberts is a researcher, author, broadcaster, and facilitator working in national security. With a background in military operations from 25 years' service in the British military, he later served as Director of Military Sciences at RUSI, where he built the institute's flagship Land Warfare and Sea Power conferences. He advises governments, companies, and institutions on contemporary warfare and future conflict, remains a non-resident professor of modern warfare at the École de Guerre in Paris, and hosts the Western Way of War podcast. He is also a commissioning editor for Howgate Publishing.
Jakub Janda
Director of European Values
Jakub Janda is Director of the European Values Center for Security Policy, specializing in European policy toward Russia and China and the response of democratic states to hostile influence operations and strategic contingencies. He serves as an officer in the Active Reserves of the Czech Armed Forces, within the 91st Information Warfare Group. He established the European Values Center's Taiwan Office in 2022, the first permanent presence of a European think tank in Taiwan, and served as a visiting fellow at Taiwan's Institute of National Defence and Security Research. He has advised the Czech government on foreign-influence policy and briefed the U.S. Congress, NATO's Political Committee, and the European Parliament.
Dr. David Santoro
President and CEO of the Pacific Forum
Dr. David Santoro is President and CEO of the Pacific Forum. He specializes in strategic and security issues across Asia and Europe, with current interests in great-power dynamics, U.S. alliances, and deterrence, particularly the role of China in an era of nuclear multipolarity. His 2021 volume, U.S.-China Nuclear Relations: The Impact of Strategic Triangles, was published by Lynne Rienner. Dr. Santoro leads several of the Pacific Forum's track-1.5 and track-2 strategic dialogues. Before joining the Pacific Forum, he worked on similar issues in France, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Kimberly Lehn
Executive Director and Head of National Security and Defense at the Pacific Forum
Kimberly Lehn is Executive Director and Head of National Security and Defense at the Pacific Forum, where she leads the organization's strategy, operations, and programs across the Indo-Pacific, including the Honolulu Defense Forum. Her work spans deterrence and alliance integration, gray-zone competition, the defense industrial base, and emerging technologies such as AI and autonomy. A national security professional with over twenty years of experience, she previously served at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the Department of State, and as lead policy adviser on China and the Indo-Pacific for the House Armed Services Committee, overseeing U.S. Indo-Pacific, European, Northern, and Strategic Forces Commands.