Our Requirement:
Title: Staff Officer (Strategic Thinking) – NATO 2030
NATO International Civilian Grade: 15
Duty Location: Brunssum, The Netherlands
Requirement filling date: as soon as possible
Closing date for applications: 26 July 2026
Our organisation
Joint Force Command Brunssum (JFCBS) provides a Joint headquarters to plan, prepare and conduct operations to support NATO’s core tasks, at the Joint Operational level, as directed by SACEUR.
The Management Directorate enables the full range of HQ functions through the coordination of services and activities. The Integrated Advisory Team Office (IAT) is responsible for management and business continuity planning for the JFC HQ in support of the assigned mission.
The incumbent assists and advises the Head of IAT on strategic thinking - in particular provides a holistic, cross-functional, objective analysis and advisory capability to the Director of Management (DOM) and JFCBS senior leadership. The incumbent will liaise and coordinate with enterprise activity stakeholders in order to effect change and provide organizational coherence in the headquarters.
The main duties of Staff Officer (Strategic Thinking) are to:
• Articulate the necessary actions to achieve anticipated organizational goals, in particular the adaptation and development of JFCBS, in accordance with high-level references considering the internal and Allied Command Operations (ACO) guidance.
• Support the development of directives, concepts and strategies to implement policy enterprise activities aligned to ACO Policies. Keep extant plans, policies and concepts within the Branch’s auspices under review and present recommendations for change, as appropriate.
• Contribute to the implementation of a clear vision and mission that articulates what the organization aims to achieve in the long term, support and develop operational military vision documents, strategic initiatives, think-pieces and non-papers - JFCBS mission related.
• Assure the convergence and synchronization between strategic and operational level providing advice on the areas to be better developed in order to cohere PAN-HQ plans and policies.
• Design, monitor and oversee an implementation roadmap outlining action steps required for alignment between both levels. This implementation road map must consider the assessment cycle, the resourcing cycle and the decision-making process cycle
• Liaise and coordinate with main stakeholders at operational and strategic level to better cohere and coordinate the lines of actions of the internal strategies and main high-level documents.
• Propose changes to and improve the capability of the HQ to anticipate challenges and opportunities.
• Develop and maintain a sound knowledge and understanding of NATO capstone and high-level documents produced by strategic commands.
• Provide comprehensive analysis and recommendations to leadership; this includes the drafting of speaking notes, narratives and presentations.
• Prepare and conduct briefings, background papers/talking points to JFCBS Command Group (CG) and external entities when ordered.
• Influence the Key Leadership Engagement Plan to achieve the goals of JFCBS.
The incumbent may be required to undertake deployments in support of military operations and exercises, and/or TDY assignments, both within and without NATO boundaries. Such operational deployment may exceed 30 days duration up to 183 days in any period of 547 days and may be on short notice. For NATO International Civilian Staff, acceptance of an employment contract linked to this post constitutes agreement to deploy in excess of 30 days if required.
Required Qualifications are:
English – good – NATO Standard Language Proficiency 3333.
(Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) in accordance with NATO standard agreement (STANAG) 6001.
NOTE: The work both oral and written in this post and in this Headquarters as a whole is conducted mainly in English.
University Degree in public or business administration, international relations, operations management, organizational leadership systems engineering or equivalent in related field / discipline.
(equivalent is Higher Secondary Education AND completed advanced vocational training in relevant field leading to a professional certification or accreditation).
Minimum 3 years’ professional experience in a large Headquarters, Joint Command, NATO/National Headquarters or large multi-national organization.
Minimum 2 years’ professional experience in alternative planning.
Minimum 2 years' professional experience in long-term planning.
Minimum 2 years' professional experience in idea generation, framework development and programmatic planning with proven ability to translate concepts into clear, well-structured written documentation.
Desirable Qualifications are:
Experience working with Net Assessment concepts and methodology.
Experience in delivery of organizational structure and change management initiative within large or multi-national organization.
Completion of relevant courses/training for this position.
The successful candidate possesses following personal attributes:
Excellent communication skills, both oral and written - ability to communicate at all levels;
High level of interpersonal skills including tact and diplomacy;
High level of organisational and coordination skills;
Ability to work independently;
Ability to collaborate and work with different stakeholders;
Ability to effectively work in a complex and an international environment;
Good problem-solving skills.
The successful selected candidate must be able to obtain and maintain a security clearance and is required to pass a medical examination before an employment contract offer will be released. The medical examination will take place with our medical consultant, is required to determine if the recommended candidate is fit to perform the duties and is deployable to NATO's areas of operation.
This requirement is in support of the NATO 2030 agenda.
The successful candidate will be offered a 3-year definite duration contract as NATO International Civilian (NIC); remuneration will be exempt from taxation and allowances will be applied whenever applicable.
For serving NATO international Civilians: contract will be offered in accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations and the additional Nations’ guidance (MCM-0061-2023 for NATO 2030 Project Linked NICs). The selected staff member will get a definite duration contract regardless of the current contract, with the exception of the case when they have more than 10 years of service, in which case they will receive an indefinite duration contract.
Due date for receipt of applications: Sunday, 26 July 2026 23:59.
Candidates have to apply electronically in NATO Talent Acquisition Program:
https://nato.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobsearch.ftl?lang=en
IMPORTANT:
Please be aware that a Selection Board will only assess the information provided in the job submission form including the answers to the pre-screening questions and description of your work experiences. Your answers must be comprehensive and stand alone; do not rely on attached documents for essential information (Attachments are supporting documents and should not be referred to in the job submission). For example, if a pre-selection question asks you to justify how you meet the minimum experience requirement, you must explicitly detail in the answer box how your experience directly aligns with, or exceeds, the stated requirement. Simply stating you meet the requirement is insufficient; provide concrete examples and quantifiable details.
Only candidates meeting ALL essential required qualifications will be considered and be assessed in competition with other candidates.
Please note that NATO will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. NATO reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at NATO’s sole discretion, and NATO reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.