Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as President of the Republic of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. He is known internationally for his role in making Estonia one of the most digitally advanced nations, championing e-governance, digital identity and cyber security throughout his career. He is a Distinguished Nonresident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and a member of the Trilateral Commission.

As President, Ilves also chaired the EU Task Force on eHealth (2011–2012) and the European Cloud Partnership Steering Board (2012–2014) at the invitation of the European Commission, and co-chaired the advisory panel of the World Bank's World Development Report 2016 on "Digital Dividends.”

Before the presidency, Ilves served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1996–1998 and 1999–2002), leading Estonia's EU and NATO accession process, and as a Member of the European Parliament (2004–2006). From 1993 to 1996, he was Estonia's first post-independence Ambassador to the United States and Canada, during which time he co-initiated the Tiger Leap programme to computerise all Estonian schools. He began his career at Radio Free Europe in Munich in 1984, rising to Head of the Estonian Service.

After leaving office, Ilves was a Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at Stanford's CISAC and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Munich Security Conference Advisory Board.

Ilves holds a BA from Columbia University (1976) and an MA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania (1978).