Arctic Worries: Melting Ice, and a Russia-China Partnership
DEEP DIVE – As more Arctic ice melts and more avenues for navigation and commerce open up at the top of the world, there’s a […] More
By Sean Roche
Mr. Roche was the Associate Deputy Director of CIA for Digital Innovation serving as the second-in-command of CIA’s first new directorate in more than 50 years. The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) was created to accelerate the integration of advanced digital capability across all of CIA’s mission areas and is responsible for a wide range of espionage missions including cyber intelligence, open source collection, secure global communications, worldwide mission information systems, data curation, and data science. He successfully built the annual budget to more than $3B while overhauling the legacy personnel systems and practices to create CIA’s first digital workforce. Prior to this position, Mr. Roche served as the ADD of CIA for Science and Technology. During his career within the S&T Directorate he had held senior executive roles across a wide range of missions, technical disciplines, and tradecraft, ranging from research and development to clandestine operations. He led teams that developed, delivered, and deployed satellite and airborne reconnaissance systems, next generation collection platforms, clandestine technical collection systems, and advanced targeting tools and tradecraft. His direct, actionable contributions to high profile counterterrorism efforts were personally recognized by the President, Congressional leadership and foreign heads of state. Mr. Roche also served in positions across the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense. During his career at CIA he also concurrently served in the US Air Force Reserve retiring as a Colonel after 25 years of service. He has been the recipient of multiple Presidential, IC, CIA and DOD individual and team awards. He received CIA’s highest award for effectively advocating and building a diverse and inclusive workforce.
