Defence industry leaders at the NATO-Industry Forum 2023 [VIDEO]

The NATO-Industry Forum is the premier strategic-level event supporting NATO and industry engagements. The theme for the 2023 edition of the NATO-Industry Forum is ‘Addressing the New Strategic Reality Together’. The Forum is building upon the decisions taken by Heads of State and Government, in particular those related to the Defence Production Action Plan, at the NATO Vilnius Summit on 11th and 12th of July 2023 and is offering an opportunity to explore NATO’s vision for its future defence capabilities.

The NATO-Industry Forum is bringing together industry executives, senior NATO civilian and military commanders and national officials, as well as key leaders from other institutions. Some of those leaders in industry have gathered to share their thoughts and insights on the evolving landscape of defence and security. Their perspectives shed light on the critical discussions taking place at the NATO Industry Forum, and the vital importance of such an event.

Micael Johansson, CEO of Saab AB

“We look forward to becoming part of the Alliance, as an industry also, and we look upon ourselves as an integrated part of NATO’s defence capabilities.”

“Industry has a big impact on how we can move forward and create more capacity and better security supply, talking about the ecosystem and the supply chain to move things forward to increase stockpiles and increase deterrence and resilience so industry’s part in that is essential.”

Paul Saunders, Head of Product Strategy and Chief Evangelist for Cloudy ERP SAP

“Many NATO member countries are SAP customers, and the important piece is not just thinking about each of those individual countries as a silo, but how everything fits end to end in an integrated manner.”

“This forum in particular is absolutely critical.  As Steve Jobs said: ‘you start with the customer and work your way back to technology.’ – This NATO Industry Forum is absolutely starting with the customer. Understanding across our peers and from the different NATO members, what it is that we’re trying to do, collectively, together.”

“One of the reasons I decided to join this company is that at SAP we say that one of our goals is to help the world run better and to improve people’s lives. There are very few organizations, maybe with the exception of the UN, that you can say does that better than NATO. Protecting our modern way of life. It’s not where we can just work with o

ne particular country, or one branch of one country’s military or one branch of one country’s government, it’s how do we work with them all together in order to move the world forward.”

Michael Schoellhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space

“Our relationship with NATO is very significant for us. As we witness the war in Ukraine and what’s happening in Israel, NATO is more important than ever. NATO is the centerpiece, the spider in the web that keeps it all together and it keeps North America and Europe together and very successfully so.”

“The NATO Industry Forum is a “must attend” Forum. When you have everybody in one room, the NATO officials, the top military brass and the industry heads, that really provides for a great agenda and many meaningful points in terms of what do we need to shape going forward. Planned bilaterals {discussions}, and then probably three times as many unplanned bilaterals just by connecting and bumping into each other so it really is a great event every year.”

“It’s more important than ever that we up our game in terms of tackling and grappling what’s currently happening. This is the beginning of a changing of the world order. It’s not as simple as it used to be, it’s a multi-polar world. There are a lot of powers that sit on the fence that take advantage of situations, there’s war that we need to face and tackle in Europe. In this regard there are many things we need to get resolved in terms of multi-domain operations, in terms of interoperability. Even the U.S., I would argue, could not cope with the current level of challenges that are building up globally. We need to stick together, we need to maximize and multiply our forces. That calls for standardization, that calls for interoperability, that calls for open architectures and that’s not always what we’re seeing. NATO can help us come together and be the architect of standardization of interoperability.”

Michael Williamson, President of Lockheed Martin International

“I’m really excited to be at the NATO Industry Forum today. This is a really critical meeting and I think the discussions we’re having are even more critical when you think about deterrence and how interoperability brings deterrence. We’re very fortunate at Lockheed Martin to have had these long term partnerships with NATO and NATO members and the discussions we’re having today are all linked to how you continue to build deterrence and build interoperability.”

Raffaella Luglini, Chief Sustainability Officer for Leonardo 

“The NATO Industry Forum taking place in Stockholm is a unique opportunity for the alignment, integration and sustainability along with the defence and security companies of the Alliance. Sustainability is a matter of ecosystem and this is the place where different stakeholders are gathering to discuss the hottest topics for NATO and industry. There’s no doubt that sustainability, environment, social and government are a core topics that industry and NATO are facing today since sustainably is a matter of environmental security, security of the supply chain which are a core constituency of our industrial defence environment and also for the security of the energy resources that are at the core of the world we are living in.”