BOOKINGS CLOSED - Please contact Christine Gomm with any queries about this event.
We are delighted to welcome Rex who following the refresh of the National Shipbuilding Strategy earlier this year will talk to industry on the strategy and the opportunities for industry supply chain.
Agenda:
- 16:30 Registration
- 17:00 Welcome - Caroline Donaghy, ADS Defence Director
- 17:05 Presentation and Q&A with RAdm Rex Cox
- 18:00 Networking reception
- 19:00 Close
Biography:
CEO National Shipbuilding Office
Rex Cox assumed the role of CEO of the National Shipbuilding Office in July 2021.
Commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1988, he cut his teeth as a Junior Warfare Officer in a variety of ships involved in maritime security duties within the UK and on NATO embargo operations in the Adriatic. He also enjoyed a rewarding two year exchange appointment with the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Fast Patrol Boat Flotilla, culminating with him attending the FPB Commanding Officers’ Course.
Qualifying as a Principal Warfare Officer (Above Water Warfare) and having specialised in Anti-Air Warfare, he served as Operations Officer in the Type 42 Destroyer HMS LIVERPOOL at a time when the Ship saw service as escort to the Fleet Flagship and Air Defence Commander during Operation Telic 1 (Iraq 2003). He later returned to Iraq on the UK Maritime Battle Staff, with responsibility for training the Iraqi Navy and Marines in the Force Protection of Iraq’s strategic oil terminals.
He has had the privilege of commanding four ships: HMS SEVERN, an Off Shore Patrol Vessel tasked on Fisheries Protection and Homeland Security; the Type 42 Destroyers, HMS YORK and HMS MANCHESTER, which included a deployment to the Caribbean on counter-drugs and disaster relief operations, providing support in the aftermath of several hurricanes, in particular to St Lucia following Hurricane Tomas; and the Type 45 Destroyer HMS DRAGON, where he also held the role of Captain Above Water Warfare and deployed to the South Atlantic.
A graduate of the Higher Command and Staff Course, staff appointments have included the Maritime Warfare School as the lead instructor on the Principal Warfare Officers Course and two tours in the Finance and Military Capability Directorate within the Ministry of Defence, the most recent as the Head of Capability Plans. He also served a three year appointment as the Defence Policy Adviser to HM Treasury (2015 -2018), during a period which included the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the National Security Capability Review and the Modernising Defence Programme.
Rex Cox is married and lives in Hampshire. He is a Freeman of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, an alumna of the Windsor Leadership Trust, a Trustee of the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, Chair of the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust and extremely fortunate to Skipper the historic Motor Anti-Submarine Boat (MASB) 27, part of the Royal Navy Memorial Flotilla. Leisure pursuits revolve around sailing, rugby and maintaining links with Norway; he also speaks enough Norwegian to get himself in to trouble.
