Major General Pierre Gérard

Commander Belgian Land Forces

Maj Gen Pierre GÉRARD was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1964. After graduating from the Royal Military Academy in 1989, he served as a platoon commander, deputy company commander and company commander in an infantry battalion stationed in Germany.

He was first deployed as a Deputy Company Commander in Eastern Slavonia with the first contingent of the UN mission UNPROFOR (BELBAT I) in April 1992 and three years later, in 1995, as a mechanized infantry company commander in the UNPROFOR mission in the vicinity of OSIJEK.

Between 1995 and 1999, he was in charge of the education and training of the young officers in the Belgian Infantry School.

Subsequent to his Command & Staff Course, he was assigned to the “Régiment Chasseurs Ardennais” where he successively served as Deputy Operations Officer and Operations Officer.

In 2003, he deployed as the Commander of the Force Protection Detachment at Kabul International Airport within the ISAF framework. In 2004, as a major, he became the deputy G3 Operations of the Land Component Command and, one year later, he attended the Senior Staff Course at the Belgian Defense College.

He then served as a Brigade Operations Officer and after being promoted, he took over the command of the “Battalion Chasseurs Ardennais” from 2008 to 2011. Under his command, the battalion deployed successfully on two locations simultaneously, in KUNDUZ and KABUL, Afghanistan. At that time, he served in 2009 as a Detachment Commander OMLT and Senior Mentor in an Afghan infantry “Kandak”.

In 2012, he graduated from the U.S. National War College, National Defense University, and obtained a Master of Science degree in National Security Strategy. Back in Belgium, on his demand, Colonel Pierre GÉRARD got in charge of the bilateral relations with African countries at the Department of Strategy of the General Staff. In this position, he strongly advocated to redress the Belgian military and interagency efforts from the Great Lakes to the Sahel region and contributed to launching new partnerships, among others with NIGER.

In December 2014, he became the Director of Operations to the Belgian Minister of Defense. Within the context of the terrorist attacks in 2015 and 2016, he managed and directly supported the political decision making process for new operations as various as naval escorts to the French carrier “Charles de Gaulle”, homeland operations, or OIR in Iraq and Syria. He also headed the interagency working groups that led to the designation of Belgian generals as Force Commanders for EUTM MALI, EUTM RCA and MINUSMA.

After being promoted to Major General, in September 2017, he was assigned to the Eurocorps. As the Deputy Commander, he was in charge of preparing the Corps for its NATO role as an HQ NRF LCC 2020 while simultaneously developing a vision for the Eurocorps 2030 horizon.

Since October 18, 2019, Major General GÉRARD has been the Commander of the Belgian Land Forces. With his team, and in strong partnership with international partners, he has engaged in an ambitious transformation and modernization plan that should result in a bigger, stronger and more capable Force in the next decade. On a shorter term, he strongly pleads to engage larger Belgian Combat Units in the Sahel region.

Maj Gen Pierre GÉRARD has recently been assigned as an Aide de camp to the King of the Belgians.

He is married to Stéphanie. With their three children, they share a passion for wilderness, mountaineering and outdoor activities.