Ms Carmen Romero

Carmen Romero was appointed NATO Director of Security Policy, in the Political Affairs and Security Policy Division, in July 2024. 

She previously served as NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy from October 2016 to June 2024. She joined NATO in May 2004 as Deputy Spokesperson and Head of Press and Media, a position she held for 12 years. She was also Acting NATO Spokesperson, including during the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008.

Prior to this, Carmen had a long career as the Foreign Affairs Correspondent for EFE

News Agency based at the United Nations in Geneva, Moscow and Paris, covering events such as the revolution in Romania, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the war in Chechnya, the crisis in Kosovo, and NATO’s air campaign in the former Yugoslavia. From 2001 to 2004 she was Defence and Foreign Affairs Correspondent for EFE News Agency to the European Union and NATO. During that period she was also special envoy to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Carmen has a Master’s degree in Journalism and Information Science from the Universidad Complutense de Ciencias de la Información, Madrid. In 1996, she received an award for Young Journalists by the International Press Association in Madrid for her media coverage of the war in Chechenia as special envoy. In 2018, Carmen was awarded the Bernardo Álvarez del Manzano Prize by the Spanish Association of Defence Journalists for her collaboration with Defence correspondents. In 2019, she was awarded the Decoration of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy (Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia) by the President of the Republic of Italy.  In 2022, Carmen was awarded with the Order of Civil Merit Medal (Cruz de Oficial de la Orden del Mérito Civil) by his Majesty the King of Spain. Both in 2022 and in 2023, Carmen was included in the ranking of the 500 most influential Spanish women by the magazine El Mundo,‘Yo Dona’.