Stefanie Babst is one of the few women in Germany who can look back on a successful career in international politics. She worked at NATO in Brussels for 22 years, most recently as Head of the Strategic Planning Staff. This made her the highest-ranking German woman on NATO's International Staff. Stefanie Babst (*1964) studied Political Science, Slavic Studies and International Law at Kiel University from 1983 to 1989 and subsequently at Pennsylvania State University/USA. In 1993 she completed her doctorate at Kiel University with the help of a scholarship from Harvard University, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the Fulbright Commission. In 1991, she began her professional career as a research assistant at Kiel University. From 1993 to 1998 she was a lecturer in Eastern European Studies at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College in Hamburg. During this time, Babst was a guest lecturer in the USA, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. In 1995, she was a member of the OSCE Election Observation Commission in the Russian Federation. In 1998, she joined NATO's International Staff in Brussels, where she worked as German Information Officer until 2001. From 2001 to 2006, Babst headed the NATO Countries Unit in NATO's Public Diplomacy Division. In 2006, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer appointed her Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO, making her the highest-ranking German woman on NATO's International Staff. In the years that followed, she shaped NATO's communications and media policy in a variety of ways, supporting a large number of ministerial and summit meetings as well as the Western defence alliance's enlargement processes, partnerships and operations. In 2012, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked Stefanie Babst to set up an effective crisis forecasting and strategic planning team, which she headed until 2020. In this role, she advised the NATO Secretary General and the respective Chairmen of the NATO Military Committee on global and strategic security issues. In March 2020, Stefanie Babst ended her work for NATO and, together with four internationally renowned power women, founded Brooch Associates, a strategic consulting firm based in London. She supports several multilateral policy projects, including a diplomatic Track II process with the Chinese Foreign Ministry's think tank. As an expert for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag, she warned against military aggression by Russia towards Ukraine at an early stage. Stefanie Babst is a recipient of the Order of the Knight's Cross of Latvia. Over the past 20 years, she has published extensively on international issues and is a sought-after speaker. She is a member of various global networks and forums, including the World Economic Forum in Geneva/Switzerland.