August ’26 CGCI Newsletter – CGCI Insights

Dear CGCI Community,

July tested how quickly decisions can be made when events refuse to wait. On July 6 and 7, Iran struck three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that had bypassed its preapproved shipping route. Within a day, President Trump declared the June 14 memorandum of understanding “over,” the United States resumed strikes on Iranian targets, and the Navy reinstated its blockade of Iranian ports. Three months of fragile passage through the Strait ended almost as fast as it began. In Ukraine, Kyiv sustained a relentless deep-strike campaign against Russian energy infrastructure and military logistics through the month, while Russian missile and drone barrages kept killing civilians in Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kyiv. Neither conflict found the resolution its paperwork promised, and both moved on timelines that outran the institutions built to answer them.

On this side of the ocean, July offered a sharper version of the same lesson. On July 16, Hugging Face disclosed that an OpenAI security evaluation had chained its way into Hugging Face’s production infrastructure. Eleven days later, more than 70 organizations, led by NVIDIA, had launched the Open Secure AI Alliance to build shared defensive tooling. It was a genuinely fast, genuinely American response, and it is exactly the kind of speed this month’s two CGCI Insights pieces ask whether the rest of the system can match.

In “Closing the Decision Gap: A Whole-of-Society Moment in the New Strategic Race,” Omer Rafiq, CGCI Vice President, argues that eleven days of industrial mobilization means little without a designated government counterpart, defined liability protections, and capital allocators willing to underwrite the defensive layer as seriously as they underwrite everything else. In “The Buffer Is the Strategy,” Maisoon H. Kafafy, Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council Middle East Programs, examines a slower-moving version of the same gap: five months of war have driven the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 43-year low, drained further by a repair backlog and no standing budget to refill it, while China has spent a decade quietly building the reserve capacity Washington is now borrowing back at interest.

Different sectors, same structural question: whether the United States funds and fields its defenses ahead of the crisis that will test them, or only after. Rafiq’s piece and Kafafy’s piece both land on the same conclusion CGCI was built around, that private industry and public capability can move at very different speeds, and that he distance between them is where risk, and cost, quietly accumulate. Kafafy’s article picks up directly where CGCI’s 2025 report, “From Strategy to Execution,” left off, on whether capacity gets priced as insurance before a shock or scrambled for during one. Rafiq’s builds on the NSRA’s work mapping where cyber and AI risk now sits ahead of policy. Closing that gap, whether the asset in question is a cavern of crude or a model-scanning framework, is most of what CGCI convenes operators, underwriters, and allocators to do.

We’re grateful, as ever, for the sponsors and partners who make that convening work possible, and the co-authored whitepaper series previewed last month is moving forward across several of our eight GCI sectors. Thank you for the work you do steering capital toward the capability the country will need before the next crisis arrives.

Sincerely,

Christina Alfonso, Executive Director, Council on Global Competition and Innovation – CGCI

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The Buffer is the Strategy

Five months of war have driven the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve to a 43-year low—while China has spent the past decade building its energy buffer.

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Andy Baker

Managing Director, American Global Strategies; Fmr. WH Deputy National Security Advisor

Andy Baker is a Managing Director at American Global Strategies, where he advises clients on national security, foreign policy, geopolitical strategy, and the implications of a rapidly changing international environment for business and investment decisions. Prior to joining American Global Strategies, Dr. Baker served in the second Trump administration as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump and National Security Advisor to Vice President JD Vance. He is the only U.S. official to have served concurrently in both positions and was closely involved in the development and execution of U.S. national security and foreign policy, including the administration’s National Security Strategy and major diplomatic and security initiatives around the world. Before entering the White House, Dr. Baker served as National Security Advisor to then-Senator JD Vance beginning in 2023, advising him on foreign and national security policy in the Senate and during the 2024 presidential campaign. Earlier in his career, Dr. Baker spent more than a decade as a career Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State. His assignments included service in Afghanistan and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, with work spanning diplomacy, strategy, and national security. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Dr. Baker lectured at Oxford University and published Constructing a Post-war Order: The Rise of US Hegemony and the Origins of the Cold War, based on his doctoral research. Dr. Baker earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Oxford. He is proficient in Russian, Bulgarian, and Persian.

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Omer Rafiq

Vice President, CGCI

Omer Rafiq is a cross-sector leader with experience spanning the public, private, and non-profit sectors. As Vice President at the Council on Global Competition and Innovation (CGCI), he leads the organization’s development, strategy, and engagement with public and private institutions.

Previously, Omer worked across the defense technology and venture ecosystem, partnering with U.S. and allied government leaders to harness artificial intelligence for operational innovation, faster decision cycles, and strengthened mission resilience across the defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure sectors.

A former U.S. Marine Corps officer, Omer served across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa in conventional, special operations, and interagency assignments, overseeing portfolios spanning security cooperation, crisis response, and counterterrorism. Following active duty, he served as a senior advisor at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, shaping policy at the intersection of technology, irregular warfare, and global competition.

Omer is a Senior Advisor to NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP) and an Advisory Board Member to QLab, Harvard’s national security incubator. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.

He holds a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a Center for Public Leadership fellow and a Pat Tillman Scholar. Omer also earned a Master of Science in International Relations from Northeastern University and a Bachelor of Science from Worcester State University.

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Benedetta Berti

Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly

Dr Benedetta Berti

Dr Benedetta Berti is the Secretary General of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly since October 2025.

The Secretary General leads the Assembly’s Secretariat as senior executive officer and principal strategic advisor to the Assembly’s political leadership, with responsibility for the Assembly’s activities and policy work, as well as for representing the Assembly externally.

Dr Berti previously served as Director of Policy Planning in the Office of the Secretary General at NATO (2018-2025). She is Associate Researcher at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

An Eisenhower Global Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow, Dr Berti has, in the past decade, held research and teaching positions at West Point, The Institute for National Security Studies, and Tel Aviv University, among others.

Dr Berti is the author of four books, including Armed Political Organizations: from Conflict to Integration (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Her work and research have notably appeared, in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times; as well as in Civil Wars, Democratization, Government & Opposition, Mediterranean Politics, The Middle East Journal, Parameters, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence.

She holds a BA in Oriental Studies from the University of Bologna, and an MA and PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School (Tufts University). 

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Stephen Thankel

Dr. Stephen Tankel

PhD: Associate Professor, American University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council

Dr. Stephen Tankel is a national security expert with 20 years of experience working across government, the uniformed military, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of U.S. Foreign Policy and Global Security at American University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he serves as the Principal Investigator for the Reimagining European Defense and Innovation Task Force. He is also the founder and president of Red Arrow Advisors, a strategic advisory firm that supports clients in the defense and homeland security domains.

Dr. Tankel has a long history of public service, including as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Most recently, he served in an active-duty military capacity as the Director of Defense Policy and Strategy on the National Security Council staff. In this role, Dr. Tankel was the lead White House official responsible for defense industrial strategy, developing and leading efforts to address shortfalls in U.S. production, increase acquisition of innovative technologies, and forge an integrated defense industrial base (DIB) with allies and partners. He received the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his. Dr. Tankel also served in a civilian capacity on two occasions in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Department of Defense, at the State Department, where he coordinated foreign assistance for Ukraine following Russia’s full invasion, and on the House Foreign Affairs Committee majority staff.

Dr. Tankel’s research interests include U.S. defense policy and planning, defense industrial strategy and defense industrial cooperation, the use of force as an instrument of statecraft, and security cooperation and arms transfers policies. Dr. Tankel is the author of two books and has been published in a wide array of peer reviewed journals and popular outlets. He has also served in numerous editorial roles, including as a Senior Editor at War on the Rocks. Dr. Tankel received a PhD in War Studies from King&#39;s College London, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a BS from Cornell University.

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Samuel C. Mahaney

Gen. Samuel C. “Bo” Mahaney, USAF (Ret.), JD, MPA: Founding Director, Strategic Policy and Armed Forces R&D Institute at Missouri S&T; National Security Fellow, Harvard University.

Samuel C. Mahaney, Major General, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), is the Founding Director of the Strategic Policy and Armed Forces R&D Institute (SPARDI) at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), a Carnegie R1 research university at the center of America’s national security technology future. With 36 years of executive leadership in aerospace, defense, logistics, and technology, he is building public-private partnerships that advance innovation, strengthen secure supply chains, and accelerate the transition from research to commercialization and manufacturing. Currently, he leads national-scale efforts in nuclear energy, smart grids, critical materials, microelectronics, AI, drone tech, robotics, and advanced materials.

Mahaney is a combat pilot with over 5,150 hours of flight time. As former Chief of Staff for Air Mobility Command, Mahaney implemented secure data integration, operational resilience, and cyber-safe mission planning. In senior roles at CENTCOM and HQ Air Force, he shaped mobility, electronic warfare, and aerospace operations tied to the industrial base, optimizing processes and forging transformative partnerships like the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus program.

A Harvard National Security Fellow, Georgetown Capitol Hill Fellow, and Juris Doctor from Saint Louis University, Mahaney serves as Senior Fellow & Policy Advisor for The Alliance for American Leadership, Trustee at Missouri S&T, President of the Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization, and is a member of the board of the National Security Crossroads Alliance. He is a former law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and currently teaches history, national security, Constitutional law, and leadership studies at Missouri S&T. He is a speaker on defense technology innovation, energy grid resilience, and workforce development, advocating for aligning research, investment, and education with U.S. technology and manufacturing strategy.

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Andrew J. Grotto

Andrew J. Grotto

JD, MPA: William J. Perry International Security Fellow, Stanford University and Co-Director, Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center.

Andrew J. Grotto founded and co-directs the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), where he is also a William J. Perry International Security Fellow. He is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. 
 
Grotto also serves as the faculty lead for the Cyber Policy and Security specialization within Stanford’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy Program. He teaches the core course for the specialization, Fundamentals of Cybersecurity and Policy, and also teaches a graduate seminar on Economic Statecraft. 
 
Grotto is President and CEO of Sagewood Global Strategies LLC, a technology policy and risk advisory firm. He sits on the Board of Directors for Slamfire Inc., the studio behind the AAA video game Back4Blood.
 
Before coming to Stanford in 2017, Grotto served in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. He served as the Senior Director for Cyber Policy on the National Security Council at the White House for two U.S. presidents. He was U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker’s Senior Advisor for Technology Policy, counseling the secretary on matters ranging from export controls and CFIUS reviews to cybersecurity policy. As a Professional Staff Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he led staff oversight of the budget and operations of the National Security Agency and U.S. Intelligence Community cyber operations and analysis, among other responsibilities. He began his career at a think tank in Washington,
DC researching nuclear weapons-related matters.

Grotto received his JD from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, his MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and his BA from the University of Kentucky.

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Dr. Christos A. Makridis

Dr. CHRISTOS A. MAKRIDIS

PhD (Senior Researcher, Gallup; Research Associate Professor, W. P. Carey School of Business – Arizona State University; Digital Fellow, Stanford University Digital Economy Lab)

Christos serves as an Associate Research Professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business and Research Affiliate at the Global Security Initiative (both in Arizona State University), an Associate Faculty at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, a Digital Fellow at the Digital Economy Lab in Stanford University, a Non-resident Fellow at the Institute for Religious Studies at Baylor University, Visiting Faculty at University of Nicosia, Senior Researcher at The Gallup Organization, a policy adviser, and an entrepreneur. He is the CEO/founder of Dainamic, a financial technology service provider working to democratize the use and application of data science and AI techniques for small and mid sized organizations, COO/co-founder of Living Opera, a classical music multimedia production company with an associated 501(c)3 Foundation, and CEO/Founder of CM Culture Management, a boutique artist management and cultural placemaking service provider.

Christos also serves as a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations. Christos previously served as a Senior Adviser on the National Artificial Intelligence Institute at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and on the White House Council of Economic Advisers managing the cybersecurity, technology, and space activities. He has also been an Adjunct Scholar at the Manhattan Institute, a Non-resident Fellow at the Cyber Security Project in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a Digital Fellow at the Initiative at the Digital Economy in the MIT Sloan School of Management, a Non-resident Research Scientist at Datacamp, a Visiting Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and an Adjunct Associate Research Scholar at the Chazen Institute in Columbia Business School. Christos’ primary academic research is in the intersection labor economics, the digital economy, and human flourishing, publishing over 120 articles in leading journals. He has also written over 300 stories in the popular press.

Christos earned a Bachelor’s in Economics and Minor in Mathematics at Arizona State University, as well as dual Masters and PhDs in Economics and Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University.

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Mark Patrick

Managing Director, Head of Macro & Country Risk, Head of Credit Risk, TIAA; Fmr. Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Dept. of State

In his Macro & Country Risk role, Mark provides analysis on geopolitical, political, and economic developments to senior management and the Board. The team oversees macro scenarios that guide financial planning and capital stress testing, sets country risk limits, and manages exposure reporting across approximately 110 sovereign jurisdictions globally.

The Credit Risk team governs credit risk ratings, modeling, monitoring, and surveillance for all issuers and securities owned by the TIAA General Account. Credit ratings drive TIAA financial planning models and Investment Risk and Country Risk loss models.

Mark’s international career spans over three decades of global public and private sector service, with deep expertise in the Asia Pacific, Latin American, and European regions. Prior to joining TIAA in 2016, he was Head of Asia Pacific Country Risk at JP Morgan in Hong Kong, and, previously Head of Developed Markets and Latin America Country Risk at JP Morgan in New York.

Mark was a Lead Derivatives Negotiator for the LAMCO (Lehman Brothers) bankruptcy estate. He founded and managed the Sovereign Risk function at Lehman Brothers.

He served as a career US diplomat for nine years with tours in Peru, Singapore, and Washington, providing him with on-the-ground experience across key emerging and developed markets.

Mark speaks Spanish and is familiar with Russian and Portuguese. He earned his Masters degree at the University of Michigan and is a graduate of Pomona College. Mark lives in Chatham, New Jersey with his family.

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Mark Pascale

Director, Harvard Belfer Center Intelligence Project

Mark Pascale is a National Security Executive whose career spans intelligence, private sector, and academia. He is in his third year as the Director of the Harvard Belfer Center Intelligence Project. Mark served two decades at CIA to include as a multi-time Chief of Station, having lived 14 years of his adult life in China, Russia, and Syria. After CIA Mark spent several years on the Executive Team of Strider Technologies, a strategic intelligence company specializing in intellectual property protection and supply chain resilience.

Mark holds a BA from Colgate University and an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS and speaks Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin.

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Stephen Rubley

Stephen Rubley

Fmr. President, Government Division, Thomson Reuters; CEO, TRSS LLC

Mr. Steve Rubley served as the Founder, CEO and President of TRSS, a U.S. subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, where he oversaw the delivery of innovative, data-driven solutions to U.S. federal government and commercial clients, supporting critical missions related to national security, public safety, and commerce. In his additional, dual-hatted role, Steve led Thomson Reuters’ portfolio serving U.S. Federal, State, and Local Government customers, overseeing the strategic direction and implementation of innovative growth initiatives. The Government segment is dedicated to enhancing public safety through data-driven solutions.

Under Steve’s leadership, his team achieved global recognition in combating human rights crimes, including human trafficking,  forced labor and child exploitation while driving strong yoy growth.   He also spearheaded efforts to establish Thomson Reuters as one of the leading private sector companies in the U.S. working to fight fraud and exploitation in social assistance programs.

Before joining Thomson Reuters in 2008, Steve was the Vice President and General Manager of the Government Services division at ChoicePoint, Inc. He has served on advisory boards for the Homeland Security Philanthropic Council and Business Executives for National Security and has previously been a board member of the Federation for Identity and Cross-Credentialing Systems and the National Coalition for the Prevention of Economic Crime.

Deeply committed to volunteering and community engagement, he is the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Blessings in a Backpack, a nonprofit that mobilizes communities, individuals and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children across America who are at risk of going hungry on the weekends.

Steve earned his bachelor’s degree from Denison University and holds an MBA from George Washington University.

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Kevin McAleenan

CEO, BearBig.ai; Operating Partner, AE Industrial Partners; Former Acting Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Mr. Kevin McAleenan is Chief Executive Officer of BigBear.ai, an AI-driven technology solutions company supporting security agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and commercial customers. Kevin co-founded and led Pangiam during its dynamic first three years until its acquisition by BigBear.ai in 2024, where he spearheaded the development of cutting edge biometric and computer vision products for security applications, and provided world class software development capabilities, for government agencies and airports and airlines.

Kevin brings experience from two decades of leadership in the U.S. Government, serving both Democratic and Republican administrations, to his role. He was the first career civil servant to be nominated and confirmed as Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and served as Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As Acting Secretary, Kevin led over 240,000 employees, administered a budget of over $60 Billion, and oversaw operations at CBP, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Secret Service, and more.

His past experiences include implementing innovations to the U.S. international air and land border arrival and departure process, developing comprehensive counterterrorism and risk management strategies, and overseeing the implementation of the U.S. government’s single window for international trade, a project that spanned over 4-dozen agencies. Kevin received several awards for his service and leadership including a Presidential Rank Award—the nation’s highest civil service award, a Service to America Medal, and multiple awards from travel and trade industry groups.

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Michael Montelongo

President and CEO of GRC Advisory Services, LLC

The Honorable Michael Montelongo is a seasoned board governance and audit committee financial expert with an extensive record of leadership across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. A former presidential appointee and Senate-confirmed senior official, he serves on the boards of Civeo Corporation (NYSE: CVEO), Monarca Authentic Snacks, and the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), where he is also a Board Leadership Fellow and faculty member.

Montelongo is President and CEO of GRC Advisory Services, LLC, advising boards and senior executives on governance, risk, and compliance. He is an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, where he was previously on the faculty, and earlier held senior executive roles at Sodexo, Inc. A public policy and geopolitical expert, Montelongo is a Council on Foreign Relations lifetime member.

Previously, he served as the 19th Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller, managing a $120 billion budget during two wartime operations and later serving as Acting Secretary of the Air Force. His contributions to national security and space strategy extend to service on the NASA Advisory Council and the board of The Aerospace Corporation.

Montelongo began his career as a U.S. Army officer, completing a Congressional Fellowship and teaching at West Point. Born and raised in New York City’s Lower East Side, he earned a B.S. from West Point and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. His civic engagement spans youth, veterans, and national service, and his recognitions include top civilian honors from the Air Force and NASA and the Latino Leaders Magazine Maestro Award for Lifetime Leadership.

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Lorraine Wilson

Senior Advisor, CGCI

As Lorraine is an expert in methodology and framework development. She leverages her extensive financial services and technology background to excel in research and coalition building. Lorraine is a senior advisor to the Council on Global Competition and Innovation. Lorraine founded Blue Horizon Economy, a business advisory firm in Washington, D.C. Prior to founding Blue Horizon, she was head of methodology and a member of the executive leadership team at a Microsoft-backed data management platform for the private markets. Lorraine’s early career included roles at the Department of Justice and Council on Foreign Relations. Her financial services experience includes roles in investment management in New York at Bank of America Merrill, Third Avenue Management, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Lorraine was an inaugural fellow at the Economic Club of New York. Her nonprofit experience includes founding and managing the Investor Solutions team at JUST Capital. In addition to this, Lorraine has served on the board of several community organizations. A frequent university lecturer and conference keynote, Lorraine serves as an advisor to New York University. Her research has been published in Barron’s and New Private Markets. Lorraine holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

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Philip Root

CTO, GRVTY
Former Director (STO), DARPA

Phil Root provides unique research and development experience stemming from his operational Army career and his subsequent research roles at NASA and DARPA. His research areas span autonomy, ethical AI, space flight, signal processing, complex systems, economics, robotics, and advanced manufacturing. His DARPA portfolio made strategic investments in the lunar economy, economic statecraft, and classified domains of direct interest to INDOPACOM. Phil began his Army career as an Apache helicopter pilot. Phil earned his MS and PhD from MIT and his BS from West Point.

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Dame Fiona Murray

Associate Dean of Innovation, MIT
Chair, NATO Innovation Fund

Dame Fiona Murray is the Associate Dean of Innovation at the MIT School of Management and the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship. She is the Faculty Director of MIT’s Office of Innovation and also Faculty Director of The MIT Kuo Sharper Center for Prosperity and Entrepreneurship. Fiona is an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She received her BA ’89 and MA ‘90 from the University of Oxford in chemistry. She subsequently moved to the United States and earned an AM ’92 and PhD ’96 from Harvard University in applied sciences.

Fiona is Chair of the NATO Innovation Fund and has served on the British Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology and was awarded a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for her services to innovation and entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. She is also a member of the Ministry of Defence Innovation Advisory Panel and the European Innovation Council Joint Expert Group. She also sits on a number of Boards including Prime Coalition (a not-for-profit creating new venture fund with catalytic capital to support start-ups focused on climate impact) and MassChallenge (one of the first large-scale accelerators in New England supporting entrepreneurs solving significant global issues).

Murray is an international policy expert on the transformation of investments in science and technology into deep-tech start-up ventures that solve significant global challenges and create national advantage – from defense and security to health, food and water security. Her work includes understanding new funding approaches for innovations that arise from scientific research, and educating the next generation of technical leaders to build effective ventures. She has focused on the particular issues faced by ventures who have dual-use (commercial and government) solutions and work in contexts characterized by complex global power competition. She also works with large public and private sector organizations to effectively drive their strategic goals by linking to external innovation ecosystems especially universities, start-ups, and risk capital. 

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Dawn Meyerriecks

Corporate Board Member, Advisor, Speaker, Technologist
Former Deputy Director of Science and Technology, CIA

As an independent director and board member, government and commercial technical powerhouse leader, Dawn brings more than 40 years’ experience pioneering new products and services and leading transformation for iconic brands around the world, including CIA, AOL, and U.S. DoW. She is a recognized expert in delivering entrepreneurial technical capabilities and processes to international markets, leveraging unparalleled stakeholder acumen into strategy, development, integration, and operations.

Dawn’s multi-industry experience dealing with international start-ups through multi-national Fortune 10 companies delivers unique insights to private and public company boards at all life stages. She is recognized for her deep understanding of user and chief stakeholders needs, effecting innovative and essential changes wherever she has served.

From 2014-2021, Dawn led the iconic CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, directing the organization’s first restructure in their fabled 57-year history, defining and delivering global capabilities beyond state-of-the-art even in the midst of significant workforce societal and health concerns. Prior to this role, Dawn redefined technical oversight for the Intelligence Community while serving at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with a topline of +60B, enabling on-time, on-budget delivery while returning 30% of her own budget and staff to mission.

Dawn has served on the National Security Agency (NSA) Corporate Board for over a decade, also supporting both their Technical Strategy and Information Assurance subcommittees. During this time, NSA adopted and migrated all mission IT to the cloud and revamped their approach to encryption and defense in depth.

In addition to supporting the Intelligence Community, Dawn sits on commercial governance, audit, and compensation committees, as well as equivalent forums for public and non-profit entities. She is currently on the boards of KnightSwan Acquisition Corp., ARKA Group LP, QTS Data Centers, Infleqtion, Google Public Sector, the National Space Security Association, the Defense Intelligence Memorial Fund, OODALoop, Squadra Ventures, Siemens Government Technologies, and the National Cybersecurity Center.

With a passion for establishing strong partnerships to ensure America’s long-term global competitiveness, Dawn sustains a personal portfolio as a MITRE Senior Fellow; as an advisor to the national Special Competitive Studies Project; as a consultant to CIA, NSA, and Donovan Capital Group; and as a Commissioner on the Senate Armed Services Committee Commission on Emerging Biotechnology.

Before entering government service, Dawn was an executive at AOL and led the restructure of AOL Products to ensure alignment to business objectives, leading M&A technical assessments and ribbon-cutting new global facilities.

Dawn is a highly sought technical leadership speaker. She maintains a current TS/SCI clearance. Additionally, Dawn has been a Virginia Master Gardener Volunteer for the last 13 years, nurturing her local community. She lives in Virginia with her family.

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Graham “Gray” Chynoweth

Founder, The Next Offset
Former Director of Global Activities, Office of Strategic Capital at the U.S. Department of War

Graham Chynoweth’s career has seen him drive change and impact across the areas of innovation, finance, and national security.

As an operator, he has served as CEO and in executive leadership roles overseeing operations, engineering, finance, legal, and talent functions in companies ranging from early-stage startups to firms with over 450 employees. He has raised more than $100 million in capital across private and public markets for companies in internet infrastructure, software, hardware, and biotech. He has also served as CEO and Director of a NASDAQ-listed company and as a Director of a publicly traded commercial bank.

As an investor, Graham has backed more than 25 startups, led New Hampshire’s largest angel investor network, and served as a General Partner in a venture fund focused on early-stage companies in New Hampshire.

In parallel with his civilian career, Graham has served as a Naval officer, leading multiple innovation initiatives. He was Deputy Director of NavalX, the U.S. Navy’s innovation cell; Director of Global Technology Scouting and Co-Investments at the Office of Strategic Capital within the Office of the Secretary of War; and a technology scout with Task Force 59 under the U.S. Navy’s Central Command.

Graham, a New Hampshire native, is also deeply involved in civic and nonprofit work, having served as a Director or Advisor to organizations such as New Hampshire Public Radio, the St. Anselm College Ethics in Governance Program, and the Business School at Southern New Hampshire University.

He holds a B.A. in Political Science with High Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy; a J.D. from Duke University School of Law; and a Certificate in Transnational Law from Duke and the University of Geneva Faculty of Law.

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Jesús Mantas

Jesús Mantas

Former Global Managing Partner, IBM
Board Director, Biogen, IFF, and National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)

Jesús Mantas is the former Global Managing Partner responsible for Business Transformation Services in IBM. Prior to this, he led IBM Business Consulting, IBM Global Process Services, and IBM GBS Latin America. Before IBM, he was a Partner in the High Technology practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, and worked at Procter & Gamble in Spain.

He serves as the Chair of Compensation and Management Development of the Board of Director of Biogen Inc.(NASDAQ: BIIB), as well as a Board Director of IFF (NYSE: IFF) and NACD. He was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council and serves on the Boards of HITEC and NACME, non-profits focused on leadership development of diversity in technology. He is the emeritus chair of IBM’s Hispanic Diversity Council.

Jesús holds degrees in Telecommunications, Software Engineering, and Business Administration, was a professor at University of California, Irvine Graduate School of Management, and served as an officer in the Air Force of Spain.

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Glen Dodson

Glen Dodson

Job Title, Cyberistics

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David Ulevitch Portrait2

David Ulevitch

General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

David Ulevitch is an entrepreneur and investor. As a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he leads the firm’s American Dynamism practice, which focuses on investing in companies advancing American interests — including supporting builders in areas such as defense, national security, public safety, nuclear and aerospace. David sits on the boards of Alloy Automation, Anduril, AnyRoad, Charthop, Firstbase, Flock Safety, Orderful, Rewatch, Skydio, Superhuman, Supermove, Vitally, and WorkBoard. David has written extensively on the role of technology in advancing American interests, including how nuclear technology can untether our military, the future of public safety and how the U.S. can rewire the Pentagon for a new era. David was previously the founder and CEO of OpenDNS, a cloud-delivered security service that was acquired by Cisco in 2015 for $635 million. While at Cisco, David was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security — a $2.4 billion annual revenue business with more than 5,000 team members — where he oversaw the company’s global cybersecurity strategy, product portfolio, and business. Prior to OpenDNS, David founded EveryDNS, an authoritative DNS service, and grew it into the world’s largest free DNS service. He sold it to Dyn (now Oracle) in 2010.

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John M. B. O'Connor

John M. B. O’Connor

Chairman and CEO, J.H. Whitney Investment Management

John M. B. O’Connor is CEO of J.H. Whitney Investment Management, LLC. Previously, Mr. O’Connor was Chairman of JP Morgan Alternative Asset Management. Mr. O’Connor is also CEO of Whitney Strategic Services and Whitney Data Services. Mr. O’Connor serves on the Board of Directors of numerous companies including Oceus Networks, LLC., Sequoia Holdings, Inc., and Boon Logic, Inc.

Mr. O’Connor is a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he lectures on the Economics of National Security. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of War Business Board from 2005 to 2021 and as a Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army for New York from 2014 to 2019. He is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Air Force Distinguished Public Service Award and the Department of the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Mr. O’Connor earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tulane University and a Master’s in Business Administration degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

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Sherif Nahas

Sherif Nahas

Director of Private Equity, Ford Foundation

Sherif works at The Ford Foundation, where he manages approximately $7 billion in private investments, including venture capital, private equity, real estate, and natural resources. He previously managed private investments for the University of Virginia endowment, and before that worked at BankBoston and Sand Hill Capital. Sherif started his career as an engineer and product strategist at The Ford Motor Company. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. and M.E in Aerospace Engineering, and received an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.

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Byron Loflin

Byron Loflin

Global Head of Board Advisory & Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence, Nasdaq

Byron Loflin is the Global Head of Board Advisory at Nasdaq where he leads the governance team in driving board and governance effectiveness. Byron founded the Center for Board Excellence (CBE) in 2010 and was CEO until it was acquired by Nasdaq in 2019.

Prior to CBE, Byron was the CEO and president for two private companies between 1992-2009. Along with speaking on and teaching corporate governance effectiveness, Byron is a graduate of James Madison University (BA) and Harvard Business School (OPM) and several HBS Executive Education Certificates including Havard’s Board Effectiveness program.

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Gen. David Stilwell

General David Stilwell

Ret. General USAF; Fmr Assistant Secretary of State (Asia)

Brig Gen (Ret) David Stilwell is the Fox Fellow for Future Pacing Threats at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Institute for Future Conflict. In this role, he educates cadets and faculty on the growing military threat presented by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including its use of political and information warfare to undermine democracies. His teachings help prepare future officers for the challenges they will face immediately after commissioning. Stilwell most recently served as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of EastAsian and Pacific Affairs from 2019 to 2021. Before that, he served in the U.S.Air Force for 35 years. Stilwell enlisted as a Korean linguist in 1980, served as a fighter pilot and commander for 25 years, and was later the Defense Attaché in Beijing. He retired in 2015 as the Asia advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He speaks Korean, Chinese, and some Japanese.
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Adam Segal

Ira A. Lipman Chair in Emerging Technologies and National Security, and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Adam Segal is the Ira A. Lipman chair in emerging technologies and national security and director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on security issues, technology development, and Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Segal was the project director for the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force reports Confronting Reality in Cyberspace, Innovation and National Security, Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet, and Chinese Military Power. His book The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age (PublicAffairs, 2016) describes the increasingly contentious geopolitics of cyberspace. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs, among others. From April 2023 to June 2024, Segal was a senior advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, where he led the development of the United States International Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Before coming to CFR, Segal was an arms control analyst for the China Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. There, he wrote about missile defense, nuclear weapons, and Asian security issues. He has been a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University. Segal is the author of Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge (W.W. Norton, 2011)
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Nazak Nikakhtar Portrait

The Honorable Nazak Nikakhtar

Partner and National Security Chair, Wiley Rein LLP
Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce

The Honorable Nazak Nikakhtar brings over two decades of experience in international trade and national security to help clients succeed in the domestic and global marketplace. Through leadership roles in the U.S. government and private sector, Nazak has leveraged her valuable insights into the expansive range of U.S. and international laws, regulatory and policy processes, and federal agency resources to achieve clients’ business objectives. 

 

From 2018 to 2021, with unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Nazak served as the Department of Commerce’s Assistant Secretary for Industry & Analysis at the International Trade Administration (ITA). Nazak also served the duties of the Under Secretary for Industry and Security at Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). In these roles, Nazak was the agency’s primary liaison with U.S. industry and trade associations, and she shaped major initiatives to strengthen U.S. industry competitiveness, promote innovation, and accelerate economic and job growth.

 

As one of the key national security experts in the U.S. government, she developed and implemented innovative laws, regulations, and policies to safeguard strategically important technologies, strengthen the U.S. industrial base, and protect the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States. As the Department’s lead on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), she played a key role in shaping U.S. investment policy. As the head of the agency’s trade policy office, she advised the U.S. government on legal and economic issues impacting critical technologies, advanced manufacturing, financial services, e-commerce, data privacy, cybersecurity, critical minerals/rare earths, and energy competition. Finally, as the federal agency’s lead on supply chain assessments, Nazak spearheaded the United States’ first-ever whole-of-government initiative to evaluate and strengthen supply chains across all strategic sectors of the economy.

 

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R.P. Eddy

R.P. Eddy

CEO, Ergo

R.P. Eddy is the CEO of Ergo, a geopolitical and economic intelligence firm known for forecasting critical world events. Leaders of allied governments and the world’s most consequential global businesses rely on Ergo to navigate what the firm calls “The Fastest Year in History”—with each year faster still.

Previously, R.P. served as a Director at the White House National Security Council and as a senior U.S. and UN diplomat. He has represented the U.S. in peace negotiations, played a role in the (flawed) creation of the International Criminal Court, and led attempts to recover American hostages. He was an initial architect of the Global Fund, which has since been credited with saving over 50 million lives; the UN team was honored with a Nobel Peace Prize. Recognized by Foreign Policy magazine as one of “America’s most respected national security experts,” R.P. was also named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum.

R.P. co-authored the award-winning bestseller Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes (HarperCollins). His advocacy work spans leading counterterrorism programs for the NYPD and LAPD, promoting Western industrial competitiveness with DARPA, advocating for safe social media, and supporting the responsible development of AI. He has testified before Congress, spoken at the UN General Assembly and the Nobel Prize Summit, and is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

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Christina Alfonso

Executive Director, CGCI

Christina Alfonso is a senior advisor to leaders across government and industry, specializing in national security, economic competitiveness, and emerging technology policy. As the Executive Director of the Council on Global Competition and Innovation (CGCI), she leads an initiative championed by the U.S. Department of War and private sector executives to advance resilient, market-driven security investments and foster strategic growth. As a Senior Advisor at DARPA, Christina prioritized developing public-private partnerships and advised on strategies to strengthen the U.S. defense innovation ecosystem.

Previously, as co-founder/CFO of Novata, a Microsoft and S&P-backed technology platform, Christina enhanced private market transparency through non-financial data reporting. As co-founder/CEO of Madeira Global (2012-2020), she pioneered values-based investment solutions for the private equity and credit sectors.

She is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executives in National and International Security program. Christina holds an M.B.A. from ESADE Business School (Spain) and a B.S. in Finance and Economics from Fordham University. Christina is a trustee and treasurer of the RWJBH Monmouth Medical Center Foundation and has served on the advisory boards of the Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle, PathNorth, and the Women’s Society for the Economy and Society. She has extensive international experience, most recently in São Paulo, and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.