Christine Abizaid

Principal

Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center

Christine Abizaid led the United States Government’s counterterrorism enterprise while serving as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) from June 2021 to July 2024. She was the eighth Senate-confirmed Director and the first woman to lead NCTC, the primary U.S. intelligence organization that integrates, analyzes, and shares terrorism information.

Before joining NCTC, Christine was as an executive at Dell Technologies in its Global Operations organization, where she led and advised on geopolitical and strategic risk analysis; supply chain security; sustainability and transparency initiatives; compliance; and global inventory management. While in the private sector, she was a board member for the Responsible Business Alliance; a board member at the Middle East Policy Council; and an inaugural Steering Committee Member for the Leadership Council for Women in National Security.

During the Obama Administration, she was appointed by the Secretary of Defense as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia and served on the National Security Council as both Director for Counterterrorism and Senior Policy Advisor to President Obama’s Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. She also directed and led the 2016 Austin expansion of the Defense Innovation Unit at the request of then-Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter.

Christine began her career as a counterterrorism analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combatting Terrorism where she focused on the Middle East and South Asia, deploying several times to the Middle East alongside the U.S. military.

She has received the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal; the Central Intelligence Agency Director’s Award; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Award; the National Military Intelligence Association John T. Hughes Award; and the DIA Meritorious Civilian Service Award. She holds a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and an M.A. in international policy studies from Stanford University.