The most senior Canadian at NATO, and one of the military alliance’s top women officials, has resigned only a bit more than a year into her three-year term.
The resignation of Wendy Gilmour as Assistant Secretary-General for Defence Investment will end her career at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Ms. Gilmour will leave next week, said Dylan White, acting NATO spokesperson.
The news of her departure was revealed Wednesday in Brussels at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principal political decision-making body, which Ms. Gilmour attended. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said she was going for “personal and health reasons.” He thanked her for her service.
Ms. Gilmour did not comment about her departure at the meeting and did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Mr. White said that Ms. Gilmour “helped to ensure that NATO developed and adopted cutting-edge capabilities across all domains. As the alliance continues to boost defence investment, strengthen its defences and help Ukraine to resist Russia’s war of aggression, this work has been more important than ever.”
Her 13 months at NATO saw her help ensure that the defence spending by the alliance’s 31 member states, including Canada, on weapons systems was going for the most effective technologies. Defence budgets have been rising, with 20 countries now achieving NATO’s goal of spending 2 per cent of gross domestic product on their militaries, up from only three countries a decade ago.
Before joining NATO in November, 2022, Ms. Gilmour had a 32-year career in the foreign affairs and the national defence departments.
She was High Commissioner to Pakistan from 2018 to 2022. Other previous positions included director-general of trade and export controls and deputy national armaments director. She also had diplomatic stints in South Africa, Britain and Nigeria and was responsible for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, Afghanistan.