Frontier Security Institute Names Executive Advisors and Second Class of Fellows

Five executive advisors and six new fellows bring experience from the National Security Council, the Defense Innovation Unit, the CIA, RAND and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission to FSI's work on frontier AI and national security.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Frontier Security Institute (FSI) today named five executive advisors and its second class of fellows, adding six experts to the 14 fellows announced in July. The executive advisors include a former director of the Defense Innovation Unit, the former executive director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and a former head of RAND’s National Security Research Division. The new fellows include a retired CIA senior executive who led the intelligence community’s work on augmenting intelligence with machines, a former Defense Intelligence Agency senior executive, and the first director of emerging technology policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

The executive advisors will advise and counsel FSI’s leadership on its research agenda and its work with the National Security Enterprise. The fellows support the analysis, wargames and convenings FSI produces for the Pentagon, the Intelligence Community, government offices and Congress. Their work spans across FSI’s three programs: Defend, which protects U.S. frontier AI from theft and adversarial attack; Adopt, which helps government make sure the AI systems it adopts are secure, reliable and fit for purpose; and Advance, which works with allies to set the rules that will govern AI.

“The answers to the hardest questions about AI’s use in national security will need to have the operators and the engineers working together,” said Isaac “Ike” Harris, FSI’s founder and executive director. “The people who’ve been in the room when the decision had to be made and the people deployed executing those decisions. That’s who we asked to join us.”

Executive advisors

• Michael Brown — partner at Shield Capital, former CEO of Symantec and former director of the Defense Innovation Unit, where he helped the military adopt 50 new mission-critical capabilities.
• Mark Montgomery — senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, former executive director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and retired Navy rear admiral.
• Michel Paradis — national security lawyer, partner at Steptoe LLP, lecturer in law at Columbia University, and former Defense Department lawyer. He was awarded his doctorate from Oxford in 2012 for foundational research on large language models.
• Barry Pavel — former vice president and director of RAND’s National Security Research Division, founding director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center and National Security Council senior director under two presidents.
• Pavneet Singh — strategic adviser on emerging technology and national security, former National Security Council and National Economic Council official and co-author of the Defense Innovation Unit’s report on U.S.-China technology competition.

Technology Fellows

• Raymond P. Gobberg III — technology executive and U.S. Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel who takes products to market across the sectors that underpin American economic, industrial and military strength. He previously led commercial partnerships at the Defense Innovation Unit and helped scale WalkMe’s sales organization through its IPO.
• Dr. Justin Grana — principal economist at Microsoft working on economic questions at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity.

Security Fellows

• Rachel Grunspan — retired CIA senior executive and former intelligence community director for Augmenting Intelligence Using Machines who founded the National Counterterrorism Center’s first analytic game and simulation program.
• Bradley Knopp — adjunct senior researcher at RAND and former Defense Intelligence Agency senior executive who served more than 11 years as defense intelligence officer for Europe.
• Nick Reese — founder and CEO of Triantha, first director of emerging technology policy at the Department of Homeland Security and NYU faculty member teaching emerging technology and geopolitics.
• Dr. John P. Sullivan — retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant and University of Southern California instructor who studies transnational organized crime, urban warfare and intelligence fusion.

Full bios for FSI’s leadership, executive advisors and fellows are available at frontiersecurityinstitute.org.

About the Frontier Security Institute

The Frontier Security Institute (FSI) provides independent, nonpartisan analysis, convenings, and education that help America’s defense and intelligence leaders and frontier AI companies meet U.S. economic and national security needs. FSI works to protect America’s lead in frontier AI, put it to work across national security, and use it to set the rules that will govern AI. FSI is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Learn more at frontiersecurityinstitute.org.