Samantha is one of the most distinguished women in the national and homeland security space. As a former senior government official - under Republican and Democrat Administrations, Samantha has a unique understanding of the security risks and opportunities facing individuals and entities today. Using her time at the Department of the Treasury, White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and as an executive in the private sector to inform her knowledge of public policy, intelligence, and geopolitics, Samantha has a remarkable capacity to advise members of the public and private sector

In a career spanning more than 35 years, longtime Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) senior executive Ted Singer has been regarded as a national intelligence and security chessmaster whose insights and acumen have guided strategic decision-making by U.S. and foreign governments on global issues of the highest complexity. From 2006 onwards, Singer served as a CIA Senior Intelligence Service officer — succeeding in positions of increasing responsibility and U.S. national security scope, and becoming a five-time Chief of Station — serving in major Middle Eastern and European capitals. Singer’s

Guy is currently CEO of Defense Analytics, an international strategic advisory and consulting firm. He is a national security, operations, and technology expert who brings a wealth of experience spanning strategy development, long-range planning, strategic communications, and digital transformation. A Forbes contributor, Guy also appears as a commentator for Fox News, CNN, SiriusXM, Bloomberg, and similar outlets. Before transitioning to private industry, Guy served as an award-winning fighter pilot, TOPGUN Instructor, and U.S. Navy commander. His tours of duty include combat missions in the

A powerful voice in the Intelligence Community and one of its leading national security professionals, Eric Traupe is the former assistant director of the CIA for the Near East and served on the front lines of U.S. counterterrorism efforts for more than 20 years. He remains a trusted advisor to our nation’s highest-ranking leaders, having advised CIA directors, presidents, cabinet and military officials, and members of Congress, and participated in momentous White House strategic, policy, and resource decisions. Traupe has tackled the full range of U.S. national security issues, and his

With over 20 years of experience in public service from Congress to presidential campaigns to serving as President Bush’s press secretary during the September 11th terrorist attacks, Ari Fleischer knows first-hand the gravity of today’s current events and the decisions that shape our lives. Using expertise, insight, and humor, Fleischer takes audiences into the events playing out today at home and around the world—including the nuttiness of the campaign trail to the ongoing debates in Washington. He parts the curtain and tells stories about life inside the White House, from what Air Force One

General Vincent K. Brooks is a career Army officer who recently retired from active duty as the four-star general in command of all US Forces in Korea, where he concurrently commanded United Nations Command as well as the Republic of Korea—US Combined Forces Command comprising over 650,000 Koreans and Americans under arms. In 2003, while serving in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, Brooks was chosen to serve as the deputy director of operations and primary spokesperson for the America's fighting force in the Middle East and Central Asia, the United States Central Command as it conducted combat

Mr. E. William (Bill) Priestap is a recognized thought leader in national security, with a particular expertise in the growing threats posed by certain foreign nations, especially Russia and China. After twenty-one years, he concluded his FBI career in April 2019. For the last three years, Mr. Priestap was responsible for all aspects of the FBI’s counterintelligence mission as Assistant Director, including the development and implementation of the agency’s global strategy to counter foreign nations’ intelligence efforts against the United States. Under his leadership, the Counterintelligence

General John Nicholson is a United States Army four-star general (retired) widely admired as a uniquely-skilled “warrior-diplomat’. He completed his term as Commander of U.S. Forces–Afghanistan and NATO’s Resolute Support mission in September 2018, as the longest-serving commander in the Afghan theatre of war. His leadership, deep experience and close relationships with Afghan leaders were key to brokering the first nationwide ceasefire in the 17-year war and helped launch the peace initiative now underway. In reporting on the Afghan war, NPR said of Nicholson, “Maybe no American soldier knows

Benn Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is the lead writer of the Council’s Geo-Graphics economics blog, and the creator of eight web-based interactives tracking Global Monetary Policy, Global Imbalances, Global Growth, Global Trade, Global Energy, Sovereign Risk, China’s Belt and Road, and Central Bank Currency Swaps. Prior to his joining the Council in 1999, he was director of the International Economics Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London. He came to the Institute

Norman T. Roule served as the National Intelligence Manager for Iran (NIM-I) at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from November 2008 until September 2017. As NIM-I, he was the principal Intelligence Community (IC) official responsible for overseeing all aspects of national intelligence policy and activities related to Iran, to include IC engagement on Iran issues with senior policy makers in the National Security Council and the Department of State. During his 34-year career in the IC and in addition to Iran, Mr. Roule has managed numerous programs relating to the wider

Dr. Evelyn Farkas is one of the nation’s premier voices on American foreign policy and geopolitics, and one of the nation’s most-trusted experts on U.S.-Russia relations. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, she was the Department of Defense’s top Russia expert under President Obama. Farkas advised three Secretaries of Defense during her tenure at the Pentagon and was responsible for policy toward Russia and the surrounding region. She is an outspoken voice on how America ought to respond to adversaries and manage aggressors, ranging from Russia to North Korea

James (Jim) Clapper is one of the finest intelligence minds of the 21st century. From 2010 until 2017, he served as the fourth-ever Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the nation’s top intelligence official, and the principal intelligence advisor to the US President. He provided the President’s daily morning brief and held one of the broadest portfolios in the entire government, overseeing 200,000 intelligence employees internationally, a $52 billion budget, and high-profile organizations like the CIA, NSA, and FBI. Called one of America’s “most experienced and most respected intelligence

Jeremy Bowen is a journalist with vast knowledge and experience of the Middle East. From 1995-2000, he was based in Jerusalem as the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent, winning awards from television festivals in New York and Monte Carlo, as well as a Best Breaking News report from the Royal Television Society on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. During the Kosovo crisis of 1999, he reported extensively from the region, often in dangerous conditions, which included being robbed at gunpoint by bandits whilst reporting from the Albanian border. Since June 2005, he has been working in the newly

Frank spent nine years as an investment banker in New York, London, and Bahrain before switching to journalism and joining the BBC in 1995. Frank has reported extensively on the global ‘War on Terror’ in Guantanamo Bay, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East. In 2004 Frank survived being shot six times at close range by Al-Qaeda terrorists in a Riyadh suburb in Saudia Arabia. He went on to write the bestselling book Blood and Sand, the poignant story of what can happen to your belief system when the culture you have embraced ends up trying to kill you. He was awarded an OBE

As one of the most recognized and respected TV foreign correspondents in the country, Rageh Omaar has one of the biggest international profiles of British TV journalists in the world, both as a prominent reporter and presenter for the BBC and Al Jazeera English. With a regular daily audience of 8 million people, Rageh’s eyewitness reports and feature length documentaries have been shown in over 180 countries. Having covered some of the biggest events in modern history, from the impeachment of President Clinton, to the Arab Spring Uprisings, Rageh achieved worldwide distinction for his BBC

Former diplomat, author, and advisor on foreign policy, Anja Manuel is Co-Founder and Partner along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps US companies navigate international markets. Anja is the author of the critically acclaimed This Brave New World: India, China and the United States, published by Simon and Schuster in 2016, and numerous articles and papers. She is the Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and

Legendary military leader General John Allen is one of the nation’s most-respected thought leaders on U.S.-global engagement. When President Obama created the appointment of special envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, General Allen was the first American tapped to confront the Islamic State terror group. Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities, Inc. speakers bureau, Gen. Allen brings audiences to the scenes of some of modern history’s most tenuous decision-making moments. His commanding presence has audiences holding their breath as they hear his first-hand accounts of

Four-Star Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld is the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second highest-ranking officer in the entire United States Armed Forces. A highly decorated leader, his nearly 40-year, celebrated military career includes extensive time as a fighter pilot and as an instructor at TOPGUN before he led at the Pentagon. He was one of the Navy’s best pilots before taking on larger leadership roles and commanding at every level, including serving as an aircraft carrier commander during 9/11. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said, “He’s been the grease in the

Dr. Michael G. Vickers career as a special operator, CIA operations officer, national security policy maker and Intelligence Community leader spanned the last two decades of the Cold War through a decade and a half of our war with al-Qa’ida, its allies and its offshoots – service that saw unprecedented senior tenure across Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently, from 2011 to 2015, Dr. Vickers served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, exercising authority, direction and control over the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial

Award-winning journalist and producer Peter Bergen is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on foreign policy, national security, and the new generation of terrorism that threatens the West and its economic interests. CNN’s national security analyst, he is one of the few people to interview Osama bin Laden face-to-face and the best-selling and award-winning author of six books. United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists, followed up his New York Times best-seller Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden – From 9/11 to Abbottabad. It was named one of the “Best Non

Thorvaldur Gylfason is Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland. He is also Research Fellow at CESifo (Center for Economic Studies) at the University of Munich, Research Associate at the Center for U.S.-Japan Business and Economic Studies at New York University, and Fellow of the European Economic Association. He has published over 150 papers in international journals and books and over 40 scholarly articles in his native Icelandic. In addition, he has written 20 books, including eight collections of essays in Icelandic, and about 800 articles in newspapers and magazines. He has

As a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and The George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute, Philip Mudd studies issues of counterterrorism, intelligence, and homeland security. He was the first deputy director of the National Security Branch and was also the former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. In those roles, he was briefed every day on the nation’s threat matrix, or every potential security or intelligence threat that is on the CIA or NSB’s radar. A self-proclaimed storyteller, Mudd is one of the most knowledgeable experts on

Dr. Kenneth Pollack is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, focusing particularly on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf countries. Before joining AEI, Dr. Pollack was affiliated with the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Before that, he was the Center’s director and director of research. Dr. Pollack served twice at the National Security Council, first as director for Near East and South Asian affairs and then as director for Persian Gulf

General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as director of both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) when the course of world events was changing at a rapid rate. As head of the country’s premier intelligence agencies, he was on the front lines of global change, the war on terrorism, and the growing cyber challenge. He understands the dangers, risks, and potential rewards of the political, economic, and security situations facing us. Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, General Hayden dissects hot spots

Juan Zarate is the Chairman and Co-Founder of the Financial Integrity Network, the Chairman and Senior Counselor for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance (CSIF), and the Senior National Security Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He is also a Visiting Lecturer of Law at the Harvard Law School, a Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a Senior Fellow to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Mr. Zarate served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating

Senator George J. Mitchell is the former U.S. special envoy for the Middle East and a former U.S. senator (D-ME). In that capacity, he worked toward an end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mitchell’s background gives him unique insights into the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian relationship, Ireland, diplomacy, conflict resolution, politics, and perspectives on the business of baseball. A Storied Statesman. After having graduated from high school at the age of 16, George Mitchell attended college and then enrolled in the army, where he rose to First Lieutenant. In 1960, he began

In a world full of noise, Zachary Karabell brings a unique perspective as both a doer and thinker who has the pulse on the major trends shaping our world today. The author of more than a dozen books on business, economic trends, and history, and a prolific commentator in both print and on television, he has helped manage, advise, and invest in companies globally. With a career ranging from China to the Middle East to the United States, he has watched the world evolve over the past twenty years and speaks to the forces that will shape our world, and your business, now and in the years to come

An authority on strategic international relations, Dr. Raghida Dergham has been a columnist and senior diplomatic correspondent for the London-based Al Hayat, the leading independent Arabic daily, since 1989. The author of what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called “a smart and important column,” she sheds light on the cultural chasm between the Arab and Western worlds and what must be done to bridge that gap. “The Middle East is not only a part of the world marked by stark difference and violent collisions. It is also marked by nuance and complication. Raghida has the intellect…to

Ian Bremmer is a political scientist who helps business leaders, policy makers, and the general public make sense of the world around them. He is president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. Ian is an independent voice on critical issues around the globe, offering clearheaded insights through speeches, written commentary, and even satirical puppets (really!). He is the host of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, which airs weekly on

Peter Beinart is one of America’s most highly-regarded commentators on American politics and foreign policy. He is a professor of journalism and political science at The City University of New York, editor-at-large for Jewish Currents, author of The Beinart Notebook on Substack. a political commentator for MSNBC and a non-resident fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. Beinart burst onto the punditry scene immediately after graduating from Oxford in 1995. Since then, he has been editor of the New Republic magazine, a columnist at The Forward and Haaretz, written widely acclaimed books

A one-of-a-kind commander with a new perspective on organizational dynamics, General Stan McChrystal is known for helping elite teams tap into the potential of their people to better compete in a complex and interconnected world. Few can speak about leadership, teamwork, and international affairs with as much insight as he can. Offering A Four-Star Perspective The son and grandson of Army officers, McChrystal has a legacy of service. He graduated from West Point in 1976 and was commissioned as an infantry officer. He later trained at the Special Forces School in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and

One of the country’s most-respected national security experts, Michael Morell is the former deputy director and acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism from Al-Qaeda to ISIS. The agency’s second-in-command, he spent his entire career at the CIA and has been in the room with the nation’s major political players for more than a decade. He is the only official who was with both President Bush on September 11th and President Obama on May 1st, when Osama Bin Laden was brought to

Henry Hogger is a British diplomat with 36 years of experience conducting bilateral relations, advising ministers, and reporting on political events. With specialization in the Arab world, his expertise spans the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, including developmental work in Venezuela, Jordan, Namibia, and Syria. The former British Ambassador to Syria, he is one of the preeminent voices on geopolitics and the future of the country. Hogger has personally met Assad and all of the key players in the conflict. He has also worked as a diplomat in Iraq and Jordan, giving him unprecedented

General John Allen is one of the nation’s most legendary military leaders and most respected thought leaders on U.S.-global engagement and leadership of large, complex organizations. When President Barack Obama created the appointment of special envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, General Allen was the first American tapped to confront the Islamic State terror group. General Allen’s diplomatic efforts grew the coalition to 65 members and effectively halted the expansion of ISIL. President Obama said of Allen, “American leadership of this coalition is making the world a safer place

Rick Atkinson is a best-selling author, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and former Washington Post journalist. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling May 2019 book The British Are Coming, which is the first of his highly-anticipated Revolution Trilogy. Among many accolades, the book has won the George Washington Prize for the year’s best work on our founding era, the New-York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize for the year’s best work in American history or biography, and the Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in American History Book Award