The Greek Deputy Chief of Defence, Vice Admiral Alexandros Theodosiou hosted the Agency General Manager, Mr Koen Gijsbers and the Global Account Manager, Mr Timothy Murphy at the Ministry of National Defence in Athens.
Opening dialogue on establishment of cooperation framework agreements to support Greece Communication and Information Systems was one of the key topics of discussion. In addition, the Agency's support to the NATO Force Structure was another important talking point. Providing unified yet tailored CIS support for the NATO Force Structure by re-using common funded developed capabilities to meet the certification requirements for the NATO Response Force is one of the Agency strategic priorities. Greece showed interest in exploring the "plug and play" opportunities to increase interoperability using NATO standards for the NATO Rapid Deployment Corps (NRDC) located in Thessaloniki.
The meeting was further attended by the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (HNDGS) Support Branch, Rear Admiral Konstantopoulos as well as by the Directors of the HNDGS areas of responsibilities, Armed Forces CIS community and the NRDC leadership.
In the afternoon, Mr Gijsbers met with high level representatives from Greek Defence Industry Associations SEKPY and HASDIG. He briefed them on NATO Acquisition principles, best value bid approach and upcoming business opportunities. He also highlighted that NCI Agency is a customer funded organization that follows the common funded regulations as mandated by the 28 Allies.
*The NCI Agency is the executive arm of the NATO Communication and Information Organisation (NCIO), which aims to achieve maximum effectiveness in delivering C3 capabilities to stakeholders, while ensuring their coherence and interoperability, and ensuring the provision of secure CIS services at minimum cost to Allies – individually and collectively.