Heidi Avery
Senior Advisor
Former Career CIA Executive and Former Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, National Security Council
Heidi Avery is a former senior executive at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She twice served as a National Security Council (NSC) official under George W. Bush (Director for Intelligence Programs) and President Barack Obama (Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security).
An innovator and creative problem-solver, serving in various CIA executive leadership roles, Heidi influenced U.S. Government and global intelligence coordination, directed strategic risk and opportunity assessments aimed at strengthening organizational and operational outcomes while optimizing federal budgeting to better align strategic investments with national security priorities. She excels at bringing together disparate ideas to identify new global and technological opportunities and harmonizing views to achieve tactical operational and broader organizational objectives as global conditions change.
As NSC Director for Intelligence Programs, Heidi advised the President and interagency deliberations on global intelligence and counterintelligence policy issues, including special programs approved by the President. Areas of emphasis included shaping the intelligence aspects of U.S. counterterrorism policy, Middle East and South Asia issues, and global intelligence sharing. She also facilitated homeland security, law enforcement, and national intelligence initiatives aimed at integrating FBI and DHS capabilities following her previous participation in the stand-up of the National Counterterrorism Center.
As NSC Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, Heidi facilitated national security event responses and chaired sub-Cabinet national policy meetings on a range of topics including biodefense, natural disasters, cybersecurity and data protection, and transportation and border security. She honed and improved her crisis management skills guiding preparation and response to high consequence events including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, H1N1 pandemic, a devastating Haiti earthquake, and the Fukushima nuclear accident, along with myriad domestic and international terrorism-related incidents. Navigating these fast-moving events reinforced the criticality of decisive action and cohesive teamwork.
Throughout her CIA career and prior private sector experience, Heidi has been known for an insightful ability to see the unintended consequences of any decision and an ability to educate others swiftly and concisely on complex strategic issues including turning formidable risks into opportunity. She excels at matrix leadership and creative conflict resolution, with deep expertise in enterprise transformation including enterprise adoption of new and emerging technologies to advance the intelligence mission.
At CIA and on detail to the White House, Heidi received many awards including the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive and a CIA Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal (2025), and broader government recognition as Federal Computing Week’s 2012 Federal 100 Recipient and the Association for Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM) award for Leadership in Cybersecurity.
Heidi is an Advisory Board member of the University of CA-Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance (BISG). Leveraging her national security and emerging technologies experience she advises on BISG objectives including deepening academia – public policy ties and establishing new partnerships between cutting edge student research, Silicon Valley, and the U.S. national security community.
Heidi earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wellesley College and a master’s degree in European History from Oxford University.