Benedikta von Seherr-Thoß is Managing Director for CSDP and Crisis Response at the European
External Action Service. Until October 2022, she served as Security Policy Director of the German
Federal Ministry of Defence (MoD), dealing inter alia with bilateral relations, NATO, EU, nuclear policy
as well as coordinating the MoD’s work on a new German National Security Strategy. From 2017, she
was EU Representative of the German Ministry of Defence and Head of the EU Division in the
Department for Security Policy for four years. She also had the ministerial lead on Germany’s EU
Council Presidency in 2-2020. Prior to that, she worked as Political Advisor to Minister of Defence
Ursula von der Leyen for two years. From 2013-15, she was the first defence civilian to participate in
the National General/Admiral Staff Officer Course of the Bundeswehr. Before that, she spent more
than two years working as Senior Political Advisor and then Deputy Director to the NATO Senior Civilian
Representative at ISAF Headquarters in Kabul/Afghanistan. From 2007-11 she functioned as Deputy
Head of the NATO Division in the Policy Planning & Advisory Staff to the Minister of Defence, focusing
on the Alliance, transatlantic issues and nuclear policy. She started her career at NATO Headquarters
in 2004, where she worked as Desk Officer in the Political Affairs & Security Policy Division. Benedikta
studied Modern History at the University of Oxford, from where she graduated with a Masters and a
PhD.
