Matthieu Borsboom

Vice admiral Matthieu Borsboom (born 1959) is a retired Royal Netherlands Navy officer who served as the 3rd Commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy and Admiral Benelux, and has served with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

Naval career Borsboom was commissioned into the Royal Netherlands Navy as a midshipman in 1978 and was commissioned in 1981. His first assignment was to HNLMS Tromp, followed by a posting to minesweeper HNLMS Naaldwijk and service as executive officer of HNLMS Veere, another minesweeper. He studied at the University of Groningen in Groningen before being sent to patrol vessel HNLMS Hadda as executive officer in 1983. He qualified as a Principal Warfare Officer in 1986, having studied at the Operational School in Den Helder, before being assigned to the frigate HNLMS Witte de With and then HNLMS De Ruyter. He went on to qualify as an anti-submarine warfare officer and was posted to HNLMS Piet Hein as head of the operations department at the height of the Cold War.

As a lieutenant commander in 1991, Borsboom transferred to the Centre for Automation of Weapon and Command Systems before returning to sea duty aboard , which was involved in supporting United Nations operations in the Caribbean, later serving aboard HNLMS Philips van Almonde. He attended the Defence Staff College in 1996 and was promoted to the rank of commander and took charge of the bureau for underwater sensors at the Ministry of Defence in The Hague, the city of his birth, for two years.