Air Vice-Marshal Tim Neal-Hopes OBE has served in a wide range of appointments, both in the UK and overseas. Cyber security, intelligence and information systems engineering, interspersed with tours supporting deployed operations, have characterised his career. Most recently, Tim served as Director Cyber and Intelligence (DCI3) within Defence Intelligence (DI), where he was responsible for intelligence collection and specialist intelligence analysis across the GEOINT, HUMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, OSINT, CI, and EW disciplines. He was also responsible for intelligence training and support to cyber effects delivery and development. This was his fifth tour in a row with DI (after a brief interlude and return to academia to attend the Royal College of Defence Studies in 2021). Other recent tours have included: command of the Joint Service Signals Organisation; Deputy Head of Cyber Policy; and Director Non-Lethal Effects on Op Inherent Resolve. Tim has directed MOD’s Cyber, Intelligence and C4 Systems Programme as Head Joint User C4ISR and Cyber, as well as serving as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for DI.

A life-long champion of personal development, Tim tries to regularly immerse himself in academia, having read Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Salford University, completed an MSc at Essex University in Computer and Network Security; an MBA with the Open University; and an MA in Defence Studies. Tim also attended the United States Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies where he read for an MPhil and published the book: “Preventing a Cyber Dresden: How the Lessons of Air Power can Influence the Development of Cyber Power.” His current area of academic interest remains in the field of cyber power development, specifically how deterministic and constructivist schools of thought best explain how technology shapes the fast-moving discipline.