Paul P. Avallone

Mr. Avallone is the Principal Security Advisor to the Secretary General and to the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and acts as Chair in high-level committees.  He is responsible for negotiating and implementing Security Agreements with non-NATO nations and International Organizations. In his role, he overseas all aspects of NATO security, including counterintelligence, insider threat detection, and information and network integrity.

Mr. Avallone joined the United States Department of State in 1997 and has spent most of his career overseas, having been posted as the senior security advisor to the U.S. Ambassadors in Athens, Dar es Salaam, Tel Aviv, Bishkek, and Kinshasa.  Mr. Avallone also has extensive experience managing risk by devising novel approaches to working safely in high-threat environments around the world, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip, and Pakistan.  In addition to his work overseas, he has completed tours as a senior advisor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, as well as at the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida.  He has also served in Washington as Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific, and most recently as a Special Security Coordinator for Pandemic Response from February 2020 until January 2021.  

Mr. Avallone has received many awards, most notably the Award for Heroism for his sustained leadership of a joint civilian and military team, as well as life-saving actions and decision-making in Port au Prince, Haiti during a lengthy civil insurrection. 

Mr. Avallone holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the Florida State University, and a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College in Washington, D.C., where he was a 2012 Distinguished Graduate.  He speaks Russian and French.