From 1989 until 1995, Eric Povel worked for a number of public affairs consultancies in The Hague as lobby consultant for companies, NGO’s and governmental bodies to represent their interests in The Hague and in Brussels.
As of May 1995, Eric Povel worked in NATO’s international staff. Firstly as the Netherlands Information Officer in the Public Diplomacy Division (PDD) at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
During NATO’s enlargement process in the late 90s, he was also responsible for NATO information activities in some of the new and candidate member states.
After NATO’s Kosovo air campaign in 1999, Eric Povel also became the media planner for NATO’s yearly Crisis Management Exercise (CMX).
As of 1 July 2006, he started working in the NATO Press and Media Section as a press officer to set up the Media Operations Centre (MOC) dealing with Afghanistan. As part of that, he organised and led several tours to Afghanistan for international think-tankers and journalists. He also dealt with all Dutch media aspects for then NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. As of January 2010, he dealt with all media aspects related to major NATO operations, missile defence and many other defence-related issues.
As of July 2011, Eric Povel was the Strategic Communications Coordinator, heading the PDD StratCom Cell in support of the Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, responsible for all operational and doctrinal StratCom issues at NATO HQ.
Since October 2012, he was the Program Officer in the Engagements Section of PDD dealing with NATO Public Diplomacy activities like co-sponsoring and co-organising of in-country seminars and organising and briefing visiting groups to NATO HQ for 7 NATO nations: Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. He also dealt with the communications aspects of the topic of nuclear deterrence.
Eric Povel retired from NATO as of 1 May 2022 after 27 years of service.
As a freelance NATO expert, Eric now occasionally supports courses, NATO simulations and trainings organised by the Clingendael Institute for International Relations in The Hague.
Eric is also a member of The Alphen Group (https://thealphengroup.com/), an informal network of 65 leading strategic thinkers from 16 countries who have come together to consider the future of the transatlantic relationship and European security and defence and do something about it. It is chaired by Prof. Julian Lindley-French.
Since December 2022, Eric chairs a family foundation, Stichting Familie Everard, that initiates research into the family history and organises social family events.
Hobbies are playing golf, attending the home games of Ajax football club, reading books, being an active member of the Rotary Club Tervuren (BE) and of the 40+ club of the Round Table 10 in Haarlem (NL).