William Usher currently serves as the Senior Director for Intelligence at the Special Competitiveness Studies Project. Prior to SCSP, Mr. Usher served 32 years in the Central Intelligence Agency where he held a variety of executive positions. He is a former member of the Senior Intelligence Service and was awarded the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. 

Mr. Usher is an expert on the Near East, Counterterrorism, Northeast Asia, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and he is passionate about enhancing the US Intelligence Community’s ability to deliver timely, relevant intelligence insights to US decision makers. Since joining SCSP, he has written and spoken extensively on how artificial intelligence is transforming intelligence work and on what the US Intelligence Community needs to do to position itself to prevail in the looming techno-economic competition with the People's Republic of China. Mr. Usher continues to provide strategic advice to IC agencies and regularly briefs Congressional oversight committees. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Bloomberg News, The Cipher Brief, among other publications. Mr. Usher got his B.A. from Duke University and is a Distinguished Graduate of the National War College where he earned a Masters in National Security Strategy.