Lieutenant Colonel Nevena Miteva joined the Bulgarian Armed Forces in 1989, because of her swimming achievements during the XXIV Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea in 1988. She studied at the National Sport Academy, where she graduated and became teacher and swimming coach at the Central Sport Club of the Armed Forces, called CSKA. From 1998 to 2000 she was deputy Commander of the National Sports Unit responsible for Logistic. As major she served as Public Relation officer in the Air Defence Corps and also as Human Resources officer in the Air Force Headquarter. In parallel, she studied at the National Defence College “Georgi Rakovski“ and graduated in 2005 as first female officer in Air Force specialty. Between 2007 and 2009 she was responsible for International relations within the Office of the Chief of General Staff of the Bulgarian Armed Forces. In 2009 she was appointed as Chief expert in the Bilateral cooperation and Regional Initiatives Department in the Defence Policy Directorate of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence. Lieutenant Colonel Nevena Miteva has been Chair of the Bulgarian Armed Forces Women Association (BUAFWA) since 2009 and is currently Chair of NATO Committee on Gender Perspectives (NCGP). The BUAFWA is a NGO which aims of to support implementation of the Women, Peace and Security International Agenda within the Bulgarian defense sector. One of its notable projects is called “Female Leaders in Security and Defence” (FLSD), which was developed in 2010 and approved by the ministers of defence of the South-Eastern Europe Defence Ministerial (SEDM) process in 2011. It was subsequently included in Tier 1 of NATOs’ Smart Defence initiative. Nevena is the project officer, coordinator and one of the authors of the “FLSD White Paper and Roadmap” which led to her successful nomination for the Chair-elect of NCGP for the 2013-2015 period and Chair of NCGP for the 2015-2017 period.