Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is among four appointees to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the White House announced today.
The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board is an independent element within the Executive Office of the President and “exists exclusively to assist the President by providing the President with an independent source of advice on the effectiveness with which the Intelligence Community is meeting the nation’s intelligence needs and the vigor and insight with which the community plans for the future,” said the White House. The president is able to appoint up to 16 members to the Board.
Napolitano served as DHS secretary from 2009 to 2013. She is a former two-term Governor of Arizona, a former Attorney General of Arizona, and a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.
Napolitano is a Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Founder and Faculty Director of the Center for Security in Politics at UC Berkeley. She served as the twentieth president of the University of California, the nation’s largest public research university. In 2019, Napolitano published How Safe Are We? Homeland Security Since 9/11. Napolitano earned her B.S. degree, summa cum laude, in Political Science from Santa Clara University and her J.D. from the University of Virginia. She is based in Berkeley, Calif.
Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld, Jr., USN (Ret.) will serve as chairman of the advisory board.
Winnefeld graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He flew the F-14 Tomcat, and served as an instructor at TOPGUN and as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L. Powell. He commanded a fighter squadron, the amphibious ship USS CLEVELAND, the aircraft carrier USS ENTERPRISE, a carrier strike group, two NATO commands, the United States SIXTH Fleet, United States NORTHERN Command, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Winnefeld co-founded SAFEProject.US, a national nonprofit committed to helping reverse the epidemic of drug overdose fatalities in the United States.
Also joining the board will be Gilman Louie, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of America’s Frontier Fund, the public private partnership created to ensure that America leads the next wave of technology innovation.
As the early CEO of In-Q-Tel, Louie has over 30 years of national security and investment experience, serving as an advisor to the Defense Innovation Board and as Commissioner to both the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) and the National Commission for Review of Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community. He is co-founder of Alsop Louie Partners and Chairman of LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, Chairman of the Board of Visitors of National Intelligence University, and the Chairman of the Federation of American Scientists. His awards include CIA Agency Seal Medallions and the CIA Director’s Award. Louie received his B.S. from San Francisco State University.
Former U.S. Ambassador ambassador to India Richard R. Verma, the General Counsel and Head of Global Public Policy for Mastercard, was also appointed to the board.
Verma is a former Assistant Secretary of State and the former National Security Advisor to the Senate Majority Leader. Verma is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and the recipient of numerous military awards and civilian decorations, including the Meritorious Service Medal and the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award. He was a member of the WMD and Terrorism Commission, and he currently serves on a number of boards including the Ford Foundation, Lehigh University and the National Endowment for Democracy. Verma is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and he holds multiple academic degrees, including his doctorate (Ph.D.) from Georgetown University and his law degree (J.D.) from American University.
