Admiral Sir Jonathon Band GCB, DL (born 2 February 1950) is a retired Royal Navy officer who was the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2006 to 2009.

Since becoming First Sea Lord, Band had been a firm advocate of the creation of new ships to meet new threats and maintain the status of the Royal Navy as one of the world's leading naval forces.

[3] In the mid 1970s, he undertook an exchange programme with the United States Navy and served on board the guided missile cruiser, USS Belknap, which is now no longer in service.

[8] In 1991, he became the Assistant Director Navy Plans and Programmes in the Ministry of Defence, a period that saw the implementation of the "Options for Change" Review.

[10] He left this appointment in December 1999 and assumed the position of team leader of the Defence Education and Training Study in January 2000[2] with the rank of vice admiral.

There is no greater connecting medium in the world than the ocean, and it unites usIn February 2006 Band took over the positions of First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff from Admiral Sir Alan West and in a press statement set out the Navy's priorities in the 21st century.

[1] These include the new Type 45 destroyer and the Royal Navy CVF programme, designed to replace the UK's current aircraft carriers.

[17] In February 2007, at a journalists' briefing, he warned that the Royal Navy needed another £1 billion to meet future foreign policy demands and appealed to the Government for additional funding, a third of the navy's annual operating budget, to spend on building more modern ships.

[18] In a later interview with the Daily Telegraph he said that an increase of more than 30 per cent in the fleet's day-to-day budget was necessary to pay for better sailors' wages, the running of ships and improved accommodation.

[8] He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 2008 Birthday Honours[21] and succeeded by Mark Stanhope as First Sea Lord on 21 July 2009.

[22] Band became a Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire on 27 November 2009[23] and a non-executive director of the cruise company Carnival Corporation & plc, in April 2010.