Ambassador Timo

Timo S. Koster is an independent board member and strategic advisor. He supports various companies and other stakeholders with strategic and geopolitical advice on security and defense as well as on issues about cyber and new technologies governance. He regularly supports international wargames and decision-making exercises and lectures at several international institutions.

Ambassador Timo S. Koster was a career diplomat at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 30 years. Until 2021, Mr. Koster held the position of Ambassador-at-large for Security Policy & Cyber. Prior to this, since 2012, he was the Director for Defense Policy and Capabilities at NATO HQ in Brussels.

After finishing his law degree at the University of Amsterdam, Timo Koster joined the diplomatic academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands in 1991, after which he served in several positions in Nairobi, London, Athens, and The Hague.

In 2008 he moved to Brussels where he served as Defence Advisor at the Netherlands Permanent Representation to NATO until 2012 when he moved to the position of Director of Defense Policy & Capabilities in the NATO International Staff. In this position he was closely involved in developing NATO’s strategic responses to the evolving security environment in the Euro-Atlantic area, and was leading on defense policy, NATO’s deterrence and defense posture, and meeting logistics challenges at the strategic level such as military mobility.

As Cyber Ambassador for the Netherlands Ambassador Koster led his nation’s efforts to establish international rules of the road in Cyberspace and set policy on international responses to those who break the rules. He worked with governments and Non-Governmental Organizations to build Cyber capacity in developing countries, both in terms of improving their resilience and defense against cyberattacks and developing cyber policy and legislation that respects privacy and human rights.

Timo Koster is affiliated to the Atlantic Council Washington DC as a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Centre for International Strategy and Security. He is a steering group member of the Multilateral Cyber Action Committee. He also co-chairs the Advisory Board of the EU CyberDirect project.