Air Vice-Marshal Doctor Fin Monahan OBE, DFC, PhD is a senior Royal Air Force officer. After training as a fast jet pilot, serving in active squadrons and exchange postings, he was appointed as commandant of the Central Flying School at RAF Cranwell, with the Red Arrows coming under his command. He has trained with several non-UK militaries, and currently serves as the Director of Defence Futures, also known as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) think tank.

Fin Monahan was born in Liverpool. He joined the Royal Air Force in September 1991, after serving with the East Lowlands Universities Air Squadron. On graduation from pilot training, he was posted to No. 4 Squadron flying the Harrier jump jet at RAF Laarbruch in Germany, during which he flew missions over Bosnia and Kosovo.

After Germany, he was posted to RAF Valley in north Wales, and then served in an exchange role with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, flying Skyhawk aircraft from RNZAF Base Ohakea.

While later serving as a pilot with No.1 Squadron in Afghanistan, he was called upon to run a mission at very short notice in support of embattled ground troops. He went on the mission alone and was later awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for gallantry on operations in 2006.

In 2007, he took command of Cambridge University Air Squadron. He then spent a year training at the Defence Services Staff College in India and, on returning to the UK, took up a post in charge of operations at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire. He was responsible for military aid to the civil authority for aircraft crash response and disaster relief for the north of England, southern Scotland, and the Isle of Man.

In that role, he maintained 24/7 readiness with a rapid response team, a mountain rescue team, and on-call aircraft assets that supported local emergency services. He also had a fire station under his command. While not a fire fighter, he underwent basic fire-fighting and breathing apparatus training in preparation for deployment on aircraft carrier operations.

Fin Monahan was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for building a NATO rapid response unit during 2013.

Between 2016 and 2018, he was the Commandant of the Central Flying School at RAF Cranwell. He was promoted to Air Commodore in December 2019 as “Head Doctrine (Air, Space and Cyber) in the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre” at the Defence Academy at Shrivenham. He was promoted to Air Vice-Marshal on 10 October 2022, on appointment as director of the centre which has now been renamed as ‘Defence Futures’.

He holds Masters degrees from both University of Nottingham and University of Madras, and awarded a Doctorate PhD from University of Birmingham on organisational culture.

His military career has seen him lead many organisations on operations, but also through organisational and cultural change.

Source: SWFRS