On 22 October, Mr Gerry Cantwell, the Director of Service Development of the United Kingdom Information Systems and Services, visited the NCI Agency in Brussels.
He met with the Agency's General Manager, MGEN (rtd) Koen Gijsbers, the Director of Infrastructure Services and Transition, Mr Dag Wilhelmsen, and various representatives of the Agency's directorates.
After an update on the Agency's structure and change programme, Mr Cantwell presented the organizational challenges that his organization is facing since the June 2014 launch of a restructuring process to adopt a centralized command organization. This opened the floor for a discussion and exchange of experiences.
The UK delegation was then briefed on:
- Current cooperation between the Agency and the UK, by Mr Xavier Desfougeres, NCI Agency Principal Account Manager for Nations;
- Implementation and achievements of the Federated Mission Networking by Dr Gernot Friedrich, NCI Agency Service Strategy directorate;
- Missions carried out by the Agency's Cyber Security Service Line, by CAPT Rick McCartney, Head of Cyber Security Operations.
The visit strengthened the bonds between the UK ISS and the NCI Agency, already formalized through a Multiyear Programme of Work between UK and NCI Agency, which is managed by ISS on the UK side.