Brigadier Chris Gent [GBR]

Deputy Chief of Staff – Transformation and Integration NATO Allied Land Command

Brigadier Chris Gent commissioned from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1998 and was posted to Germany to join 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery. He returned to 3 RHA to command C Battery RHA between 2010 – 2012, and then again as Commanding Officer between 2016 – 2019. Operational deployments include Iraq in 2003 as a Forward Observation Officer with 7th Armoured Brigade on Operation TELIC 1, where he partnered with a US ANGLICO team for the delivery of multinational Joint Fires. He returned to Iraq later that year on Operation TELIC 3 where he led on civil engagement and reconstruction. In 2010 he deployed his Battery to Afghanistan on Operation HERRICK 14, and in 2016 he served on Operation INHERENT RESOLVE as an embed within the US-led Combined Joint Task Force in the counter-Da’esh campaign. He has also undertaken operational tours to Bosnia and Cyprus. In 2015 he completed the UK Advanced Command & Staff Course where he graduated with an MA in Defence Studies, with a dissertation on The Increase of Russian Maritime Power in the Black Sea and the Impact on Regional Security. In 2021 he attended the Senior Course at the NATO Defense College in Rome, and was proud to be a member of the committee winning the Eisenhower Award academic prize with their study on Emerging & Disruptive Technologies and their impact for NATO. He went in to serve in appointments focusing on strategic transformation in Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Belgium, and then in Headquarters Allied Land Command in Türkiye. Wider career highlights include a tour with the UK Joint Force Headquarters with training and advisory deployments to Kenya, the Yukon, and Rwanda. He is also the last British officer of a generation to lead a historical battlefield study to Moscow and Stalingrad. He is an average runner and cyclist, and a keen sailor; he is a former Commodore of the Royal Artillery Yacht Club, and President of Royal Artillery Rugby League. During the Covid 19 pandemic he was an MOD Crisis Mentor and Advisor to the UK National Health Service, and he currently serves as a mentor within the UK MOD Women in Defence scheme and for Commanding Officers in the British Army.