Speakers

Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar is Ambassador-at-Large for Cyber Diplomacy and Director General of the Cyber Diplomacy Department at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2012 to autumn 2018, she worked as Head of the Cyber Policy Coordination at the European External Action Service, where she steered and coordinated EU external relations on cyber issues. She set up EU strategic cyber dialogues with the US, India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, as well as international organisations. She also kicked off the EU’s global cyber capacity building programmes and led the development of the EU Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox to bolster the EU’s response to malicious cyber activities. In 2011, she was assigned to the NATO International Staff to prepare the NATO Cyber Defence Policy.

She has been working on cybersecurity since 2007 when she led the development of the first Estonian cybersecurity strategy. In 2008-2010, she coordinated the implementation of the Estonian strategy, managed the National Cyber Security Council, and led the establishment of Estonia’s national cyber resilience structures as well as public-private partnerships for cyber security. In her earlier career, she held various managerial positions at the Estonian Ministry of Defence and Tallinn University. She was a Fulbright Scholar at George Washington University and has published in several academic journals throughout her career.