Gina Bennett

Analyst (retired)
Central Intelligence Agency

Gina M Bennett is a retired CIA seasoned counterterrorism specialist and member of the Senior Analytic Service who authored the earliest warnings in the 1990s about the growing danger of the movement Osama bin Laden fomented. She served for 34 years in the Intelligence Community, filling numerous roles in the counterterrorism mission throughout the entirety of her career. Ms. Bennett is often featured in documentaries and other media profiling her role in counterterrorism and as a pioneer for women in National Security and Intelligence careers, which she now continues as the new Strategic Advisor for Girl Security, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization which seeks to empower, secure and advance young girls into national and international security missions. 

Ms. Bennett remains an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, where she teaches both Ethics in Intelligence Support to National Security and Hunter-Gatherer National Security. She recently joined the Board of Directors of the Alturas Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing American Democracy by promoting the Constitution, civic education, gender equality and equal protection of the law to continue serving her commitment to the Constitution even while fighting to ensure it includes all Americans.  

She is the mother of five children, who were the source of inspiration for her two “National Security Mom” books comparing national security to parenting: “National Security Mom: While Going Soft Will Make America Strong,” and “National Security Mom 2: America Needs a Time-Out.” She has written numerous articles for a variety of journals, including Joint Force Quarterly and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.

Ms. Bennett earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and her Master in Security Studies as a Distinguished Graduate of the Marine Corps War College.

Katie Cummins

Liaison for Operations to U.S. European Command (USEUCOM)
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE)
National Security Agency

Katie Cummins joined NSA in 2001 as a language analyst working with Sub-Saharan African targets. She later transitioned to analytic positions working with numerous geographically disparate targets and served as the NSA liaison to the Joint Interagency Tech Transfer Task Force based at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; she has held numerous leadership positions in the Office of Counterterrorism and Sensor and Data Operations. Ms. Cummins is currently assigned to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium, as the liaison for operations and briefer to GEN Christopher Cavoli in his role as EUCOM Commander and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

A graduate of the Ohio State University, Ms. Cummins holds a bachelor’s degree in French and German.

Ms. Cummins currently lives in Neufvilles, Belgium, with her daughter Mary. 

Arlene Gaylord

Executive Assistant Director
Information and Technology Branch
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Arlene Gaylord was appointed Executive Assistant Director (EAD) of the Information and Technology Branch (ITB) in August 2023. As EAD, Gaylord leads ITB’s mission to design, build and operate FBI networks, infrastructure, end-user devices, cybersecurity, applications, and data systems. Gaylord had previously served as Assistant Director (AD) of the Information Management Division (IMD) since July 2020. Prior to that, in December 2016, she was appointed the FBI’s Equal Employment Opportunity Officer and AD of the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity Affairs.

Gaylord joined the FBI in 1991 as an Honors Intern with the Visual Investigative Analysis Unit at FBI Headquarters (HQ). In 1992, she was promoted to Spanish Language Specialist, supporting several field offices and HQ. In 1998, Gaylord became a Supervisory Language Specialist with the San Diego Field Office (FO), where she transitioned to an Intelligence Analyst (IA) in 2004. She joined the Sacramento FO as a Supervisory IA in 2009. In 2010, Gaylord became Senior Supervisory IA in charge of the Western Regional Intelligence Group. She returned to HQ in 2012 as National Program Manager of the Joint Regional Intelligence Groups. In 2013, Gaylord was appointed as an executive within the Directorate of Intelligence — first as Section Chief of the Language Services Section, and then, in 2015, as Section Chief of the Global Intelligence Section.

A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Gaylord is a certified FBI Intelligence Officer and has been designated a Master Police Instructor by the FBI and Master Instructor by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. She holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from American University in Washington, D.C., and a master’s in organizational management from the University of Phoenix.

Karly Giumento

Chief of Staff
Strategic Communications
National Security Agency

Ms. Karly Giumento is the Chief of Staff for Strategic Communications at the National Security Agency. Throughout her 15+ year career, she has served in various operational and leadership positions within the organization. Hired shortly after 9/11, she was hired by the Agency to learn Arabic, and subsequently completed four operational tours working Middle East and Counterterrorism missions before moving into the management realm. She has held various leadership positions also in Middle East and Counterterrorism missions, and recently completed a 2-year tour with U.S. CYBERCOM as the Deputy Director for Operations in the Cyber National Mission Force. She has served as the Chair of the Language Development Council, fulfilled a 3-year term on the Cryptolinguistic Association Board of Directors and was nominated by her peers to be the first Chair of the NextGen Employee Resource Group. Originally a PA-native, she graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Studies and a minor in Italian. She went on to complete her graduate studies in Italian Language and Political Science from Middlebury College in 2002 and had the privilege of completing her academic studies in Florence, Italy. She also holds a certificate of professional studies in Arabic from the University of Maryland. She lives in Maryland with her two young, energetic daughters.

Mary Margaret Graham

Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection
Senior Operations Officer
Central Intelligence Agency

Mrs. Graham is a graduate of Marywood College in Scranton, Pennsylvania and obtained a master’s degree in Russian Studies at The Maxwell School of Syracuse University. In May 2005, Mary Margaret Graham was appointed as the first Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection. Mrs. Graham previously served as CIA’s Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Counterintelligence. Following her retirement, Mrs. Graham was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. Mrs. Graham has earned several prestigious medals for her service: the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal in 2008, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service in 2008, the Intelligence Medal of Merit in 2005, the Donovan Award in 2001 and the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1996. She and her husband, Ian, live in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Avril Haines

Director of National Intelligence

Avril Haines was sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence on January 21, 2021. She is the seventh Senate-confirmed DNI in our nation’s history and the first woman to lead the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Director Haines has deep national security experience. During the Obama administration, she served as Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor from 2015-2017, during which time she led the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee. From 2013-2015, Haines was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. She was the first woman to hold both of these positions. She initially joined the federal government as a civil servant and over the last two decades has worked in all three branches of government, in and outside of the intelligence community and in academia as a research scholar at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Haines most recently led the Transition’s National Security and Foreign Policy Team and served as a member of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service.

Toni Hiley

CIA Museum Director Emeritus

Toni Hiley is an Albuquerque native who directed operations for the CIA Museum for two decades. Now a consultant to the Intelligence Community and other select organizations on museum best practices, she is passionate about using history and culture to educate, inspire and engage through inventive museum exhibits, informative publications and multimedia.

She currently serves as Vice Chair of the National Atomic Museum Foundation at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History.

Bridget Krasowski

Deputy Chief of Strategic Communications
National Security Agency

Ms. Bridget Krasowski is a senior executive leader serving as the Deputy Chief of Strategic Communications at the National Security Agency (NSA), where she is responsible for setting strategic vision and orchestrating a consistent message for the NSA to internal and external customers and stakeholders.

Ms. Krasowski began her 20-year career at NSA as an intelligence analyst and, since that time, has served in a variety of analytic, foreign affairs and leadership positions in NSA’s Information and Intelligence Analysis, Engagement and Policy and Foreign Engagement Directorates. She served as the Country Desk Officer for two of NSA’s foreign partner relationships and has supported NSA and CENTCOM missions through multiple overseas deployments. Ms. Krasowski served as the Deputy Chief of the China Division and the Chief of the Korea Division, managing missions across NSA Washington, Hawaii and the Korean Peninsula. Ms. Krasowski served overseas as the NSA’s Senior Representative, where she completed a Joint Duty Assignment. Before her role in Strategic Communications, Bridget served as a Senior Operations Officer in NSA’s National Security Operations Center. In this capacity, she provided complete situational awareness of the end-to-end Cryptologic Enterprise, national security information needs, and unfolding world events to optimize the worldwide cryptologic system.

Ms. Krasowski graduated from Seton Hall University with a master’s degree in Diplomacy and International Relations and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Carroll College. Bridget is originally from the West Coast and loves to experience new places, cultures, and food. She is currently pursuing a professional coaching certification through the International Coaching Federation and is always open to coaching and mentoring others. She is a Washington Capitals hockey fan, knows nothing about football but cheers for the Seattle Seahawks, and is a personal development junkie. Bridget lives with her husband, Lucas, and two adorable ragdoll kittens (Kip and Luna) in Silver Spring, MD.

Emily Otto ’17

Captain
U.S. Army
U.S. Cyber Command

An Army Captain, Emily Otto, is assigned to the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) of U.S. Cyber Command after a decade of threat intelligence, cyber operations and knowledge management for the Department of Defense. Additionally, she is a Non-resident Fellow with the Digital Innovation Initiative and Transatlantic Defense and Security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Emily holds a Master of International Affairs in National Security and Diplomacy from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M and a BA in History from The University of Louisville.

As a Cyber Operations Officer, Emily has led a mission element—a subsection of a Cyber Protection Team—on defensive missions and led operational planning teams to translate national policy into operational orders. She has contributed to U.S. Cyber Command’s strategic planning, shaping the vision and future of cyber operations, including offensive, defensive and information warfare. Additionally, she worked to standardize operating procedures and streamlined reporting specifically for Hunt Forward Operations. As a Knowledge Management Officer, she informed executive decisions on data, information, and knowledge management to increase efficiency at the Cyber Protection Brigade. She holds various technical certifications and frequently rips code off of GitHub to save her eyes by adding dark mode to primitive software. Emily is transitioning out of military service but remains at the intersection of cybersecurity and geopolitics.

Dr. Ann Todd

Author and Historian

Ann Todd has been a contributing author and consultant for the National Geographic Society, given presentations in national parks on OSS operations and worked as a historian for the National Museum of the Marine Corps. She served in the Coast Guard and now lives in Dripping Springs, Texas, with her four dogs.

Tonya Ugoretz

Assistant Director
Directorate of Intelligence
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Tonya Ugoretz was appointed Assistant Director of the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) in April 2022. 

Throughout her career, Ms. Ugoretz has helped grow and elevate the FBI’s intelligence program by innovating ways to deliver the FBI’s insights to decision-makers, producing analysis to meet operational needs, and mentoring others. She has represented the FBI as a leader in multiple interagency assignments and in senior-level national and international settings, including with Cabinet-level officials, the National Security Council and Congress. Ms. Ugoretz is one of the Bureau’s most visible public speakers, raising awareness of threats to the United States and the FBI’s unique intelligence and law enforcement role in combating them. 

Ms. Ugoretz began government service in 2001 as a Presidential Management Fellow and all-source analyst in the FBI’s counterterrorism program. She was the first FBI Intelligence Analyst to serve as the Director’s Daily Briefer, as a Targeting Analyst with the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and as a Deputy Assistant Director and Acting Assistant Director in the FBI’s Cyber Division.

Ms. Ugoretz served as a Unit Chief and Section Chief in the DI, and as the FBI’s Chief Intelligence Officer. In addition to the CIA, she has served in joint duty positions with Customs and Border Protection, the National Intelligence Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where she was the first Director of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. Earlier in her career, Ms. Ugoretz served as an Adjunct Faculty Member for intelligence training at the FBI Academy, and was a member of the FBI’s Intelligence Analyst Advisory Board.

Prior to joining the FBI, Ms. Ugoretz was an editor of foreign policy journals and IEEE publications. She received bachelor’s degrees in International Relations and in Spanish from Ursinus College, and a master’s degree from the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University. Ms. Ugoretz has received the Presidential Rank Award, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal from ODNI and the Director’s Award for Exceptionally Meritorious Service from the National Counterterrorism Center.

Linda Weissgold

Deputy Director for Analysis (retired)
Central Intelligence Agency

Linda Weissgold was the CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis from March 2020 until April 2023. In that role, she was responsible for the quality of all-source intelligence analysis at the CIA and for the professional development of the officers who produced it. During her 37-year career at CIA, Weissgold was part of the creation and delivery of intelligence analysis on a variety of complex issues and in multiple settings. Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she was an analyst and leader of analytic programs focused on the Middle East. Immediately afterward, she was among those who volunteered for counterterrorism assignments. The units she guided, including as the head of the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis, generated insights that informed U.S. policy and operations across multiple Administrations and helped to identify Osama Bin Laden’s location and the rise of ISIS. For more than two years, she served as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer. A skilled communicator experienced in the coverage of urgent and controversial issues, Weissgold is a proven teacher and champion of analytic tradecraft, integrity and objectivity in intelligence analysis. She is widely recognized for her unwavering dedication to the CIA’s national security mission and its officers.