Jamie Patrick Shea (born 11 September 1953 in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

) is a retired official of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO Headquarters in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

until his retirement in late September 2018.

Biography

He attended Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow, London and received his B.A. (Hons.) in

Modern History The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500, ...

and

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

from the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

(1977) and his D.Phil. in Modern History from

Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Flemin ...

(1981). He received worldwide attention during the 1999

Kosovo War The Kosovo War (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Косовски рат, Kosovski rat) was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It ...

, when he served as the spokesperson for

. He described the children and adult civilians killed by the NATO bombing of Serbia in the effort to prevent the Serbs from retaining Kosovo as the "cost to defeat an evil". He began his career in NATO in 1980 as Administrator in Council Operations, before moving to Head of Youth Programmes and Head of External Relations Conferences and Seminars. Prior to his role as spokesperson for NATO, he was a speechwriter for the organization from 1991 to 1993. Subsequent duties included Director of Information and Press (October 2000-March 2003), Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations (April 2003-August 2005) and Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges from August 2005 until his retirement in September 2018. Shea was appointed

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince of Wales (the future King George IV), while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George I ...

(CMG) in the

2020 New Year Honours The 2020 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to diplomacy and public service. Since 2024, he has been the host of NATO Through Time - history

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

, uploaded on NATO's

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel. Shea is married and has two children, Chiara and Alexander.

References

External links

* * 1953 births Living people People from London People educated at Sir George Monoux College Alumni of the University of Sussex Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford American University faculty Public relations theorists NATO officials Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George {{UK-academic-bio-stub