Kadi Silde joins from NATO DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic), where she helped set up first as Head of the transition team and Chief of Staff, and subsequently as Chief Operating Officer. She previously served as Undersecretary for Defence Policy at the Estonian Ministry of Defence in 2019-2022. In this position, she was responsible for policy planning, intelligence coordination and operations planning; EU and NATO matters and other bilateral and multilateral international cooperation.
Kadi Silde joined the Ministry of Defence in 2008, holding various positions including the director of policy planning. She joined Estonia’s EU Council Presidency team at the Estonian Representation to the EU in 2017, coordinating defence efforts and working on defence initiatives such as the European Defence Fund. She was subsequently seconded to the European Commission to implement it