Dr. Gerlinde Niehus leads the Engagements Section within NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division. As such, she oversees NATO’s Public Diplomacy engagements with audiences in NATO nations and with partners across the globe, be it peer-to-peer or by digital means. Gerlinde Niehus started her professional life as a TV and radio editor for public broadcasters in Germany (WDR and Deutschlandfunk). She then moved to a German think tank, focusing on international relations and a growing range of education and training programmes with partners in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States (NIS). This work brought her to the European Commission in Brussels, where she built up the information and communications programme EU – NIS, and subsequently developed a communications strategy for the European Commission’s Directorate General Information Society. In 1999 she joined NATO, and in 2012 assumed her present position. Gerlinde Niehus holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Muenster University, Germany.