Dean Canham OBE

Dean is currently Head of the Centre for Army Leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he leads the team researching, thinking, and delivering on individual, organisational, and institutional leadership development for the Army and other sectors. He was previously a planner in the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office’s Africa Joint Unit, working on the coordination of cross-department efforts in Somalia; he was concurrently the planning lead for the UK’s United Nations operations at the military Joint Headquarters. For his combined efforts he was awarded an OBE.

The course of his military career has taken him on operational tours in Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, and Afghanistan; he commanded the UK’s Forward Presence Battle Group in Estonia in 2021. He has undertaken training and Defence diplomacy tasks in, among others, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. He has studied and instructed at the Defence Academy, led the military contribution at the All England Club for the Olympic Games in London, and was on the Army’s Strategy Team for the Integrated Review.