Tony Battista joined Sandstone Group as a Senior Associate after a distinguished career in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian defence industry.
Tony joined the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a Private in 1974 and retired in 2014 with the rank of Colonel. During this time, he served in the Military Police and held several command and staff positions, including Personal Assistant to the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Force Provost Marshal, Commandant of the Military Intelligence School and Military Police School, Deputy Commandant of the CAF Experimentation Centre, and Chief of Staff and Deputy Commandant of the Canadian Defence Academy.
Tony’s international appointments and deployments have included Senior Officer Protection Officer in NATO (Germany), Liaison/Exchange Officer to the US Joint Forces Command – responsible for CAF participation in US transformation at the joint and combined levels, and Canadian Defence Attaché to Germany, Austria and Switzerland (two tours), Afghanistan, Italy, Greece, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Malta.
Academically, he obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Royal Military College in Saint-Jean (Quebec), entered the Command and Staff College (Toronto) and completed several other courses up to the executive level. He also completed a master’s degree in War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. As an Associate Professor at Royal Roads Military College (Victoria), Tony taught military and strategic studies, as well as Canadian foreign policy and defence.
Tony is a life member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the Royal Military College Club of Canada (2013-2015).
In 2014, Tony became the Executive Director of the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) – comprising 45 associations with over 350,000 members, and simultaneously the Executive Director of the CDA Institute and its research program. Tony is also the founder and annual sponsor of the CDA Institute Captain Nichola Goddard Leadership Award.
In 2019, Tony was hired by IBM Canada as the Business Manager for the Federal Government. In this role, he supported government officials working in the public safety, defence, police and intelligence sectors on the deployment of technology solutions beneficial to the defence of Canadian interests.
Tony is fluent in English, French and Italian and has a good command of German.
Email: Tony@sandstonegroup.ca