Rob Murray

Rob Murray, expert speaker on military innovation, today’s geopolitics and the future of NATO.

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Rob Murray is a non-resident senior fellow in the Forward Defense Program and the Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He also serves as the Chief Innovation Officer at aerospace and defence company, Saab, Inc. and as a member of faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches innovation and strategy.

Rob is co-author of the Council’s 2023 Harnessing Allied Space Capabilities paper series. He dedicated almost a decade to the NATO international staff in Brussels, serving under consecutive secretaries-general with roles ranging from NATO’s head of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to a post as NATO’s first head of innovation. Among his contributions, he designed and negotiated the agreement for NATO’s Defence Accelerator for the North Atlantic and the one-billion-dollar NATO Innovation Fund, a multi-sovereign venture capital fund for dual-use deep technologies. In addition, Murray wrote and led the successful negotiations of NATO’s Emerging and Disruptive Technology Policy in which the Alliance agreed to principles of responsible use of artificial intelligence.

Rob Murray served for ten years as a British army officer specializing in surveillance and reconnaissance. He earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, a master’s degree in international relations from Staffordshire University, and a Master of Science in intelligence management from the University of Lincoln. He graduated from Britain’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2002 and is an honorary practice fellow of Imperial College London. Rob Murray speaks in 2025 as a superbly informed expert on intelligence, global politics and military innovation including AI, all in the context of some of the most tumultuous change in geo-politics since the Second World War.

Here is just one of Rob’s testimonials, which we publish in full:

‘Few speakers can command a room quite like Rob Murray. When he took the stage at Resilience Conference in London (2024) and again at the Munich Security Conference Tech & Innovation Day (2025), he demonstrated why he is one of the most compelling voices at the intersection of geopolitics, defence, emerging technologies, and finance.

In an era dominated by complexity and competing narratives, Rob‘s communication style is a masterclass in clarity. He distills intricate global challenges—whether it’s the evolving threat landscape, the role of capital markets in national security, or the disruptive potential of AI in warfare—into sharp, accessible, and actionable insights. He doesn’t just analyse; he connects the dots, offering strategic foresight that leaves policymakers, industry leaders, and investors both informed and equipped to act.

At Resilience Conference, Rob‘s remarks on the “currency of trust” in security ecosystems resonated deeply. He framed resilience not as a buzzword, but as a measurable, financial, and strategic asset—essential for both state actors and private enterprises navigating global instability. His ability to weave historical context with forward-looking analysis set him apart from more reactive commentators.

At Munich Security Conference Tech & Innovation Day 2025, where discussions are often dense and politically charged, Rob was refreshingly pragmatic and solutions-oriented. He proposed realistic mechanisms for aligning financial innovation with defense and security objectives. His discussion on how Western economies could better integrate capital markets into deterrence strategies was particularly compelling, sparking further high-level conversations throughout the event.

Few experts can move seamlessly across disciplines—military strategy, technology, and global finance—while maintaining absolute credibility and depth in each. Rob Murray does so effortlessly. His ability to bridge the language of policymakers, tech innovators, and financial leaders makes him one of the most essential voices in today’s security dialogue.

For those fortunate enough to hear him speak, Rob delivers more than analysis—he delivers a strategic blueprint for the future’.

— Leslie Hitchcock, Resilience Media (formerly TechCrunch)