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Chris Jenkins

Chris Jenkins

Country Director and Chief Executive Officer, Thales

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Biography

Chris Jenkins is a defence industry leader, and has held senior roles in Thales locally and internationally for over 20 years.

He was appointed as Thales Australia CEO in January 2008, following the company’s 100% acquisition of the Australian Defence Industries (ADI) joint venture in 2006. This followed two years as Vice President Operations, and before that three years as CEO of a Thales consortium in the Netherlands, delivering that country’s national public transport smartcard program.

Prior to this, Chris was Managing Director of Thales Underwater Systems in Australia from 1999 to 2003. He previously held senior marketing, sales and project director roles in the business, and was also a key player in its creation as a Thales/GEC joint venture in 1996.

Chris started in the defence industry as a mechanical engineer with Racal in 1981, Plessey in 1983, and then GEC Marconi in 1990, heading up its Underwater Systems business in Australia.

He is currently National President of the Australian Industry Group and member of the AIG Defence Council.  He has a longstanding involvement in large-scale projects in critical industry sectors, and was previously Chairman of the International Centre for Complex Project Management, as well as a member of the Defence Portfolio Ministerial Advisory Council and the DSTO Advisory Board, and an Advisory Board member of the Centre for Defence Industry Capability.

Chris is an Honorary Fellow of the AIPM, a Fellow of Engineers Australia and an Adjunct Professor of the University of NSW. In 2013 he received the Insignia of Knight in the French National Order of the Legion of Honour.