Air Vice-Marshal Fin Monahan OBE DFC PhD RAF

Director Defence Futures Strategic Command

Air Vice-Marshal Fin Monahan commissioned in 1992 at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell and is the Director of Defence Futures at Shrivenham.

Fin has extensive operational experience flying and commanding operations. He flew missions over the Balkans and was decorated with a Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission in Afghanistan. He was a Deployed Operating Base Commander supporting operations in Mali and set up and held readiness for the NATO Response Force 2013 Rapid Reaction Deployed Operating Base. More recently, he took part in the NATO response to the invasion of Ukraine as an augmentee Director of the NATO Joint Force Air Component directing air operations across Europe.

Fin has extensive international experience including a A4K Skyhawk flying exchange tour in New Zealand, instructor at the Tactical Leadership Programme in Belgium and Staff College in India. He has also examined air forces across the world as the Commandant of the Central Flying School. In that role he was also the Commanding Officer of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, The Red Arrows. He has served twice at EUCOM as the PJHQ Liaison Officer specialising in Russia and Ukraine in addition to the broader dynamics across Europe.

He has pursued a parallel academic career exploring the philosophies of warfare, air power and doctrine and has a PhD in Military History and Military Organisational Culture and was also the Head of Doctrine, Air Space and Cyber at the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC). Married with three children, Fin enjoys skiing, mountaineering, sailing, diving and fly fishing and is a French speaker