Iulian Fota, PhD, is state secretary for strategic affairs of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previously, he was National Security Adviser to the President of Romania and Head of National Security Department of the Presidential Administration between 2009 and 2014. In 2020, he was named director general of the Romanian Diplomatic Institute, a position which he held until early 2022.

From 1997 to 1998, he served as Assistant State Secretary for Defence Policy at the Ministry of Defence, Romania, and between 1998 and 2001, as the Head of the Defence Section of the Mission of Romania to NATO and WEU, at the NATO HQ in Brussels, Belgium. Starting with 2002, Iulian Fota was a Senior Adviser in the Department for European Integration and Defence Policy within the Ministry of Defence, Romania, until 2005, when he was appointed as Director of the National Defence College of Romania, a position which he held until 2009.

Between 2004 – 2010, he was part of the group of experts „TEAM EUROPE”, a group of the European Commission tasked to popularize the main European policies in the new Member States and during 2007-2008, he was part of the Balkan Task Force, a strategic assessment group organized by The Institute of Security Studies of the EU in Paris.

Between 2006 and 2009, he was the co-director of a research project under the NATO Science for Peace Program. In 2015, Iulian Fota was invited to join the board of directors of Center for European Policy Analysis, the main American think tank dedicated to Central Europe. In this capacity, in 2015, he coordinated the report “High Tide – Romanian Security on Europe’s Frontline” authored by a joint Romanian-American team of experts.

Throughout his professional careers, Iulian Fota has been distinguished with several national decorations like the Star of Romania, in the rank of officer, the Order of the Crown, in the rank of High Officer (Belgium), the National Order of Merit, in the rank of Commander (Poland) and with the Great Cross of the Sovereign Order of Malta.