Mr David Burton is the Director of ASW Barrier Smart Defence Initiative, a multinational initiative comprising: Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, UK, and the US. The SDI is sponsored by the NATO Maritime Unmanned Systems (MUS) initiative.

Prior to this David was Strategic Advisor to the UK’s NavyX programme and before this Director Strategy for NATO’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE), an executive body of NATO’s Science and Technology where he was instrumental in the formation of the Maritime Unmanned Systems Initiative.

Before joining CMRE, Mr David Burton was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency.

Previously, Mr Burton served as a Commodore in the Royal UK Navy in the post of Director Change within the Information Systems & Service Directorate of the Defence Equipment and Support Organisation of the UK Ministry of Defence.

At the UK Ministry of Defence, Commodore Burton worked for the Chief Information Officer with responsibility for the UK Defence Information Exploitation and Enterprise Architecture Programmes. Prior to this he held the position as NATO’s Network Enabled Capability Integrated Project Team Leader based at ACT, Norfolk Virginia.

A Physics graduate of Bristol University, Mr Burton joined the Royal Navy in 1980. After a variety of operational appointments at sea and with the Royal Marines, he attended the Royal Military College of Science, where he was awarded a Masters Degree in Design of Information Systems. Project Management experience followed in a variety of strategic Information Systems and organisational change programmes, including Programme Management of major Public Private Partnerships within UK defence. In the late 1990s, he filled a key role within NATO’s Maritime Command and Control Information System (MCCIS) Programme.

Mr Burton is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered IT Practitioner, and Fellow of the British Computer Society