The Work

My focus is partnering with exceptional leaders who have outgrown conventional playbooks. When you build in uncharted territory, off-the-shelf advice simply cannot match your reality.

Partnering together is ideal if you are:

• Navigating high-consequence moves without a human-centered, objective sounding board to support critical decision-making.

• Seeking strategic counsel from a peer who has led through complex uncertainty and high-stakes environments.

• Exploring product-market fit in emerging categories where traditional market research falls short and customer adoption requires deep human insight.

• Needing to unify executive vision in uncharted territory, where static playbooks create confusion rather than direction.

• Looking for a keynote speaker or briefing leader who delivers lasting perspective shifts rather than generic motivation.

I help you and your stakeholders identify hidden friction, stress-test your strategy, and execute with clarity and confidence.

The Provenance

My approach is grounded in a multifaceted CIA career— spanning roles as a game and simulation designer, cyber analyst, senior executive, and futurist.  Prior to stepping into private advisory, I led a broad innovation effort in human-machine teaming for intelligence, spanning the future of wargaming and new operating models for national security.  Earlier roles included directing the Intelligence Community's AI/ML efforts and serving as Dean of the CIA's Digital University.

I founded the National Counterterrorism Center's first analytic game and simulation program, and, after 9/11, partnered with the entertainment industry to bring simulations and immersive workshops into officer training that helped teams think more creatively under pressure.  I also led dozens of future-focused "What If?" simulations across government, academia, and industry, and championed the creation of CIA's first agency-wide extended reality (XR) training lab. 

Beyond my advisory work, I co-authored The Computer Book: From the Abacus to Artificial Intelligence — 250 Milestones in the History of Computer Science and have dedicated time to mentoring rising professionals navigating the early stages of their journey.   

In my advisory work, I help organizations stress-test high-stakes decisions, validate product-market fit across diverse sectors, and design the "human layer" of increasingly autonomous systems to ensure new strategies hold up under real-world conditions.