About the Speaker

Rear-Admiral Denis Bertrand was born on November 20th, 1965 and joined the French naval academy in September 1985. During his career, he has spent 15 years at sea all over the world, has been posted in Tahiti, Brest, Djibouti, Toulon, Paris, Brussels and Tours. Most of his career was devoted to operations at sea. He served as operation officer on board the LPD «Dumont d’Urville» (88-89), executive officer of the hydrographic ship «l’Estafette» (89-90), navigation officer of the ASW destroyer «Tourville» (90-91), head of the detection department on board the ASW destroyer “Georges Leygues” (93-96) and operation officer of the ASW destroyer

«Jean de Vienne» (98-99). He has been posted three times as commanding officer at sea, first of the LPD EDIC 9052 in Djibouti (91-92), then of the frigate «Commandant Birot» and finally of the ASW destroyer « Latouche-Treville » in Brest (09-11). He took part in numerous operational deployments all over the world, in support of the French Submarine deterrence force as well as in crisis management, protection or humanitarian operations, in the Atlantic and Northern Europe, the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific Ocean, South East Asia (99-00), the Persian Gulf, the Horn of Africa, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic seas.

Rear-Admiral Denis Bertrand is graduated of the French Naval Academy (88), of the Detection officer course (93), of the French War College (02) and of the Higher Command and Staff Course (CHEM) and the College of Defense Studies (IHEDN) (12).