Stefanie Beck

Stefanie Beck is a retired Canadian public servant and diplomat who served as the deputy minister for the Department of National Defence from 2024 to 2026. Beck was previously the deputy minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada from 2023 to 2024. She was the Canadian ambassador to Croatia from 2004 to 2006, Cambodia from 2003 to 2004 and deputy high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2020 to 2022.

Education and career Beck has a bachelor's degree in German and Italian from McGill University, graduating in 1987.

Public service foreign service career She joined the Department of External Affairs in 1990. She worked as a political officer in Dakar, Senegal, and Canberra, Australia. As a result of her appointment as the Ambassador to Cambodia, she became the then-youngest woman ambassador of Canada, serving from 2002 to 2004 and subsequently as Ambassador to Croatia from 2004 to 2006.

Upon her return to Ottawa in August 2006, she became the director of security and defence relations. Later she was the senior departmental adviser to the minister of foreign affairs from September 2007 to September 2008. She became a director-general in 2008, leading the Foreign Service Directives Services and Policy Bureau until 2010 and the Client Relations and Mission Operations until 2013, when she became acting assistant deputy minister (ADM) for the International Platform Branch.

Beck joined the Department of National Defence in 2022, when she became associate deputy minister. She became a deputy minister in 2023, when she was named as the most senior public servant in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. She became the deputy minister of National Defence in 2024.

Awards In 2015, Beck received the Deputy Minister's Award for Operation Syrian Refugees. In 2009, Beck received the Public Service Award of Excellence for Afghanistan.