, good morning. Thank you for joining the session and thank you, avril haines for joining us in the discussion today. My pleasure. After we were here for the opening we had a meeting later that day and he was saying, i got to open and it was so much fun. He was talking about the conversation he had, and he said, you are closing it. It is really an exciting, frankly, conference for us. We focus so much on these issues. It is frankly an honor for me to be here. Lets jump into the topic. We recognize the importance of a talented and advice Diverse Workforce and cybersecurity given the challenges we face. In this age there have been some amazing tools and technology developed. But weve frankly seen our adversaries take advantage of those tools. So what sorts of skills is the Intelligence Community looking for for the workforce of today and tomorrow . We are focused on a whole list of different degrees and areas of expertise that we are interested in. But what is most important to us at the end of the day is really the skills that are sort of inherent in these different areas, which is Critical Thinking and judgment. Really excelling at what you do and frankly bringing in integrity and ethics, and all of those things given the extraordinary responsibility that is given to people in the Intelligence Community. And we often tell people, honestly, no matter what it is that you study, chances are weve got a job for you in the Intelligence Community. We do so many things, writing analytic work on Food Security or scarcity of Natural Resources in different areas. We have somebody who is a water expert. And in ways, the interconnections they make between the different fields are sort of very special for us and helping us understand the complexity of how the world works and that is so much a part of what we do. So, please, anybody should apply. Intelligence careers. Gov. Great way to advertise. So related to those skills it also appears that there has been a reprioritization in the National Security focus, particularly from counterterrorism and focusing against nation state actors. Is that a bit of a fair assessment, and if sos, are there challenges in adapting the workforce to the changes in priorities . I think it is loosely fair in the sense that there is no question that the Threat Landscape has changed over the last 20 years. And certainly when the institution that i run was established it was very much a conversation about counterterrorism, largely toward strategic competition. And yet, transnational threats continue to be a fundamental piece of work and an increasingly complex part of it. In many ways it is the kind of connections between these different extremes. Which is to say that we are constantly trying to understand them better predict and effectively provide policymakers with the sense of how likely are we to develop. In the other aspect that is shifting is increasingly broadening the definition of National Security. For us, Climate Change or health and Human Security is emerging disrupt of technology. Just a whole bunch of expertise we are bringing in and first bringing the expertise into the Intelligence Community so we can better bring it into our work. Also integrating so we can actually like how does certain negotiations and Foreign Policy effects, for example, Climate Change issues that are being worked on in other parts of the government and so on. So it is also the same that counterterrorism remains an issue for us. And we have to continue to be vigilant about it and also understand how it connects to all other issues. It is a great point. Picking up two themes there that are interconnected and the spinning scope of National Security. It exhibits the next topic in question which is really around a shift in the way the icy thinks about communicating with with what they collect. And what kind of learning to have to think about what takes place with compartment jason. With one that is willing to open and willing to share. Here is what i would think. We have to be trained for both in a sense. That department tatian part remains critical to us. And exactly is used, we are also increasing recognizing the importance of sharing across the factors. So the most obvious in our National Security strategies is obviously the intelligence communities and what they focus on, the importance of allies and partners. So we recognize that frankly sharing is a big part of promoting a better understanding among partners and allies you have a shared but more relative to the cybersecurity world, it is increasingly obvious to everybody that this Threat Landscape requires us to increasingly share intelligence with nontraditional partners. Part of it is what i would say is understanding the landscape. We do the Global Trends reports where we look out about 15 years and say youre the Global Trends from thing takes, private sectors and so on. And one of them key things you see in this report is the growth and power in the actors. Which is the private sector but also transnational movements. We as a community are focused on state actors but increasingly recognize that we have the Global Landscape to think about. So we need to have a better understanding of frankly the agendas of major multinational corporations for example, or even cities and states, sometimes. Built into how we are looking at an understanding what the landscape looks at. And this is something that is obvious to all of you, we recognize so much of what is outside of the government as part of the attack surface, whether Critical Infrastructure or sectors of the private sector like in the Technology Areas that we need to focus on in order to help them protect themselves because they are from such importance of the National Security perspective, that we need to share information with them and also bring them further into the decisionmaking cycle so we are able to say, how do you respond to these things . Because actually people in the private sector and other spaces we are trying to work with have a better understanding of what will work and will not work. And also you have an incredible amount of information within the private sectors that is valuable to us. So we can understand the threat and analyze it appropriately. But it is, it is a very challenging stage for us, to get into the relationship and be able to share the right information. It is also about establishing mechanisms that are making a part of the routine to make it easier for us to basically partner and communicate in more effective ways. That is a lot to cover. It is quite all right. But it strikes me, particularly from the cyber perspective. We are thinking about disrupting and dismantling Cyber Threats after you painted a broad landscape of constituents. How do you think about collectors and outsource organizations. Looking at more proactive encountering of what they are studying. There is so much to cover. He focusing on that . I know less about this than you do a for example. And probably all of you or most of you in the audience as well. One of the things i see as we are looking at the Cyber Security landscape, we are in a position where we are, obviously the threat is involved. Cybersecurity has been an issue for decades. Ransomware has only been over the last few years and is becoming more diffused as we look into the ecosystem for ransomware. As an example, in looking at that challenge and trying to understand that Threat Landscape, we have to reach out to pretty nontraditional partners to collect the information we need. Now we have negotiators and others that are trying to collect ransom attacks. We have a whole series of different partners that we need to pull in information from. That is a challenge for us. That is something we are Getting Better at but we are certainly not where we need to be, ultimately. It is kind of like a characteristic of this area, that this is something we need to do to do the collection and analysis that allows us to be in the position. Another challenge that i find, often you have actors in this space that are relevant to the state actor threats and also criminal threats. There are sort of two elements to that. One is, we are the Intelligence Team that is focused on National Security. Other parts to Law Enforcement. We support Law Enforcement but we cant just focus our resources and what are the critical threats of the nation. We have to figure it out and know that some of the ransomware threats that exist are of such intensity and are so important, ultimately, that we need to actually ink about them as National Security threats, impart and provide intelligence to help us support that through. But that is a decision that has to be made, how far down you go in terms of the support you are providing. And the second sort of challenge to it is that we tend to be traditionally focused on our state actors. The cyber threat, russia or china, that is our business, we know how to do that and we have the right group to focus in on it. But when it comes to looking at an ecosystem of actors that are out there and might sometimes combine with being used, a state actor may be used via criminal or indifferent spaces, it is a little harder organizationally. So these are some of the things were focusing on, how do we get better and essentially organizing ourselves to tap into the resources we need. That is kind of where i want to go next. Weve covered strategy and landscape and some of the challenges. The first question i have around talent, where is that i see at today in terms of garnering that type of work skills that are required for the landscape you described . I think we are moving in the right direction and still have work to do. I think of it, and you should tell me if you think this is the right way to think about it. I think of it not just as the talent in the u. S. Government. I think about it as more of cyber threat intelligence, emily does a lot of coordination and talks about these eccentric circles where youve got your focus on the workforce within the icy and u. S. Government. And then in, frankly, the private sector and other spaces around the u. S. Government. And i want to see that being more porous. In other words having people going in and out of these different spaces more effectively so we can take advantage of these opportunities to learn from each other as much as possible. I also think there are all kinds of advantages. And we are thinking of other development, and being in these different spaces to see where these things can occur in different areas. That is a part of it. And to answer your question, obviously we are focused on other things to try to increase the opportunities and of course im biased by this, but i think working in the government is just one of the most extraordinary jobs you can have, doing something that is important, and also, the people are spectacular. And when it comes down to it, i realize that the older i get the more i come to work for the people that i work with and they are just so exceptional in so many different ways. And also the adventure. You get an opportunity to do things that are often, and to sort of move in different spaces within the government because we do so many Different Things and i think it is great. I recognize that the pay is not what it is in the private sector. There are other disadvantages sometimes, there are no windows. That pretty much sucks. But it is, so, you know, there are different reasons. And i think the fact that there are different models and different ways to think about this, so i hope we can take advantage of where it is that the real expertise is needed. And that we are able to exchange. It is interesting that you made that concentric circle analogy. I think of it the same way. Where can you pull talent from, and where do you get a long tail of candidates, in terms of education. Whether its from Higher Education or further into it. Definitely a way to look at it. You mentioned pay for a second. I want to bring that up for a moment. You know that federal agencies are incentivizing recruiting talent through increased pay. So what is your perspective on leveraging higher pay. Where does the ic said on that . I think it is important. There is no question. And it is not just about recruiting but its also about retention. We are never going to compete with certain aspects of the private sector for the pay you would get plus bonus or whatever it is. But there are other ways in terms of benefits, security and other issues that relate. It is also a different proposition. As i was alluding to before. I do support consensus under certain circumstances, and think about how we do that in these spaces. I also think it has to be paired with the sort of this greater capacity, and like i was talking about before, the value of that and also recognizing the generation does not think about the career typically in the context of, im going to spend 30 years in government or a private sector or one company. The recognition of that is critical to our system and there have been a lot of efforts to try to change the way in which we deal with personnel benefits. Trying to make that a little more realistic for folks so they can enjoy the security and still have that flexibility. Needless to say, it takes us a while to change, we are working on it. It is part of the process. But all of those are important. And i also hope people recognize, it is another value that i think we have, you can come in with different degrees in different areas, frankly, and then become, find that you love something else. And how that degree or education matches against it is important. I think, increasingly, i feel as if 10 years ago we were talking about how we needed to have, more, in a sense, Technology Knowledge among Senior Leaders and tech folks at the table. The conversation shifted at some point to actually, we need to help Technology Folks understand more about our National Security and leadership. Really the energy is so crucial. When i look at my team, and i will give you a number of folks as an example, my Principal Deputy has a masters degree in mechanical engineering. Our cio, a remarkable woman, she has a phd in mathematics. Our National Intelligence manager in global issues and climate as well as Public Health and Security Issues also has a science degree. Our person runs our Counter Proliferation Center has a medical degree. So there are a variety of different, remarkable educations that come through. And i think, hopefully that sort of combination of things is useful to folks. That is interesting. I started as a coordinator and i was always, affably the best Software Engineer i worked with at a degree in philosophy. And this person was amazing. There are different ways of thinking. So we talked a little bit about recruiting and retaining the workforce. Maybe you want to shift back to the existing workforce. Is the approach you have for upscaling the existing workforce different than what weve talked about so far . In terms of upscaling the existing workforce we are definitely trying to create opportunities for folks to sort of learn across disciplines, in effect. Sometimes that is by giving them the opportunity to bring the discipline they have into another area so they are able to get that technology and experience and have effect with it. But as they do so, you have someone who happens to be a Cyber Security expert, you will learn and understand better the political issues associated with that. And i think that sort of mixing and matching is very helpful. We also have opportunities for training that we try to create within the community, both inside the community, in other words within agencies and departments, the National Security agency does quite a bit of this in the context of Cyber Security issues. But also with academic institutions and providing opportunities for us to do that together. To circle back to something you said before, one of the things we do think about is how much should we be spending on trying to develop a demand for certain skill sets and knowledge sets. And that is kind of interesting. We do some things where we try to expose tide pools so we can give opportunities for them to see how they can use these skill sets in the future. Also to try to support some of the Educational Programming in those areas. And hopefully all of that then comes together in a way that produces the workforce in the future. Weve talked a little bit about the threats we face, priorities and strategies and certainly the people. The piece to me that is always probably the most influential a lot of times in the success of technology and transformations could be culture. Maybe if you could talk a little bit about what you think the cyberculture is and how you think that goes about forming that we sort of have a strong unity of mission and focus on the outcomes you are looking for. And you talked about the mission and venture before. Im all about that from the culture perspective. Absolutely. Im sure many of you are familiar with the Intelligence Community. There are 18 elements of the Intelligence Community. Thats a lot. Many of them youd be familiar with such as the cia, fbi. We also have that National Spatial intelligence agency, we have element in basically every military service that exists. The coast guard, marines, navy, air force, army, and so on. We have Intelligence Community elements in the treasury department, commerce. Across different places, sorry, not in commerce but we have been working with them to develop liaison opportunities. So as you look across this enormous ecosystem of the Intelligence Community, one of the things we think about and talk about is what does it mean to be part of the Intelligence Community . There are so many different pieces to what we do. Cybersecurity is a perfect example of some of the challenges and also opportunities created through that. There is every agency, as you might imagine, has there own character and culture. For those of us, we can joke about what those look like in different spaces. And in many ways, i think, personally, you want to promote that. I think that is fine. There are different cultures for different type of mission sets and that is an appropriate thing to encourage and cultivate. At the same time, increasingly, integration amongst the intelligence agencies is what allows us to be one of the most remarkable things. If you look at like the conflict with ukraine and consider how many different forms of intelligence it took, how many different pieces of the Intelligence Community had to come together to bring that picture together to provide policymakers the kind of indications that we provided, it is remarkable. Never before did i see the degree in which we had to rely on each other. We talk about signals intelligence that essentially, humans intelligence that does the same for signals intelligence. We looked at commercial imagery in the context of ukraine, and to be able to look at the battlefield and present a picture to the world. A variety of Different Things have to come together when you think about these issues. We recognize the value of integration, and culture is so much a part of trying to produce an environment in which you all recognize that by leveraging each others skill sets we will be able to move forward. In the context of cybersecurity , what i had noted is increasingly we have seen folks, we have this joint duty Assignment Program where you can basically join a duty assignment for the cia, for example. So you see a fair amount of movement in that space and there is a lot of competition for the Cybersecurity Talent that exists in government. And that creates extraordinary opportunities. That is one way to affect the culture and create that Community Across the different elements so that you can see how it is these different intelligence might help you, even in the context of cybersecurity. I wish i could go into more details, but sometimes there are issues. We also do Strategic Investments where we bring together a group. It is usually one element where we say, this is a gap, this is an issue that we need to get after. They come up with a theory and we try to pull together a number of folks that are experts on these issues from different elements. We get them into a room and say, how can you all Work Together to create something that would get after this most effectively. In those moments it is completely fascinating, the connections they are able to make and the way they are able to see opportunities that they would and see if they were not looking at it from different perspectives and with different tools. And the other thing i would say is part of the question, how do you think about sharing with other entities in a way, more effectively for the ic. The reality is that we tend to be somewhat influenced. We are constantly working in classified environments. That is dangerous in the sense that what we are supposed to be doing is better understanding what is happening in the world. And part of that has its challenges. Getting out and talking to the private sector, talking to academia and partners in other countries and so on, is critical to us testing our thinking and theories and creating innovation in a sense that i think is so fundamental to our ability. Those are all the different pieces we used to try to piece together a culture. It is not a uniformed culture. Is one that i hope incentivizes an integration that we know will allow us to be greater than the sum of our parts in effect. That is a fantastic note to stop on. We think of the nature of the culture and the sum of these parts. Thank you very much for your time today. We all truly appreciate it. Please, everyone, a round of applause. General hayden ousl ygeneral haydenen is very graciously here, lets please give general hayden a very warm round of applause. And his wond, is with us as well. And his wond, thank you very much. [applause] and his wonderful wife, janine, is here with us as well. Thank you very much