OODA helps our clients identify, manage, and respond to global risks and uncertainties while exploring emerging opportunities and developing robust and adaptive strategies for the future.

OODA is comprised of a unique team of international experts lead by co-founders Matt Devost and Bob Gourley. Matt and Bob have been collaborating for two decades on advanced technology, intelligence, and security issues.  Our team is capable of providing advanced intelligence and analysis, strategy and planning support, investment and due diligence, risk and threat management, training, decision support, crisis response, and security services to global corporations and governments.

Matt is a technologist, entrepreneur, and international security expert specializing in counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, intelligence, risk management and cyber-security issues. Matt co-founded the cyber security consultancy FusionX from 2010-2017. Matt was President and CEO of the Terrorism Research Center/Total Intel from 1996-2009. (LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram)

Bob is the former CTO for the Defense Intelligence Agency and is currently the founder of Crucial Point LLC. Bob has received the Infoworld top CTO award and was named one of the top 100 “Tech Titans” in DC by Washingtonian magazine. (LinkedIn | Twitter)

The OODA Network Experts

OODA maintains a diverse network of international specialists drawn from industry, government, and academia in the United States and dozens of international locations.  Our team maintains expertise in a variety of disciplines including counterterrorism, information warfare, low-intensity political violence, computer security, technology, intelligence, predictive analysis, risk and threat management, economic & geopolitical analysis, law enforcement, crisis response, national security, and defense policy.

Brian Michael Jenkins is the world’s leading authority on terrorism & sophisticated crime, and serves as the Senior Advisor to the President of the RAND Corporation. He is also the Director of the National Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute. From 1989 to 1998, Mr. Jenkins was the Deputy Chairman of Kroll Associates, an international investigative and consulting firm. Responsible for the firm’s crisis management practice, he directed the responses to kidnapping and extortion cases worldwide. Before that, he was Chairman of RAND’s Political Science Department where, from 1972 to 1989, he also directed RAND’s research on political violence.

Mr. Steven W. Bailey is a Force Master Chief US Navy SEAL (retired) who served a full 25-year career solely as a U.S. Navy Seal. Since his retirement from the US Navy he continued service to his country as an Independent Contractor conducting operations and teaching Weapons and Tactics for USG and DOD. Mr. Bailey uses his skills in the private sector as a Security Consultant both domestically and internationally. His combined career of over 43 years has taken him to six of seven continents and provided him with a wide array of hostile environments in which to hone his skills, from close quarters combat to the battlefield itself, in all conditions day and at night. He conducts his work from the vantage point of a certified trainer of U.S. Navy Seals, USG and DOD personnel and as a man who still serves on an as needed, when needed, basis. Mr. Bailey is as comfortable in a multinational boardroom as he is in a theatre of combat. He has briefed some of the senior-most military officers in the multinational services, senior people from any number of government agencies – both U.S. and foreign, as well as countless diplomats. More recently he has been sought out for speaking to, training and protecting the leadership and management teams from huge global organizations. He has trained hundreds of Special Forces and USG personnel globally for decades, and still trains these personnel as the need arises. He also trains law enforcement officers, and increasingly trains corporate executives, high net worth individuals, and other private citizens.

John P. Sullivan is a career police officer and founder of the Terrorism Early Warning Group. He currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department where he is assigned to the Emergency Operations Bureau. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). His research focuses on counterinsurgency, intelligence, terrorism, transnational gangs, and urban operations. He is co-editor Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counterterrorism Network (Routledge, 2006).

Mark Hogan is a security expert specializing in critical infrastructure protection, intelligence, cybersecurity and risk management. Mark is currently the Chief of Security for a midwestern city. Mr. Hogan is the chair of the Emergency Services Sector’s cyber working group and is helping the sector identify and manage cyberthreats across the sectors varied complex operational environments. Mr. Hogan has been working on web based solutions for information sharing and analysis for many years in an attempt to identify threats in a timely manner and close the gaps to provide the right info to the right folks in a timely yet secure manner.

Ric Prado is a Former Senior executive in the Directorate of Operations (DO) of the Central Intelligence Agency, with twelve years in the CIA’s Counter Terrorist Center (CTC) and ten years in the Special Activities Division. Highly decorated Operations Officer with extensive operational and senior management experience in counterterrorism, counter-insurgency, Latin America, East Asia and Middle East operations. Recognized counterterrorism, security and special operations experience, including close working association with the US intelligence, military SPECOPS, law enforcement communities and the National Security Council. Native Spanish speaker.

Jennifer Hoar is a Los Angeles-based investigator and researcher for private sector clients with commercial, political, legal and security challenges requiring complex fact-finding and analysis. A former journalist, she specializes in domestic and international human intelligence-collection and investigative research, analysis and writing. Her firm, Sinclair Insight LLC, is retained by investigative, legal and investment research firms and their clients for due diligence, asset searches, corporate and competitive intelligence-collection on individuals and institutions, and adverse party research to support forthcoming and/or ongoing litigation and arbitration. A fluent Spanish speaker with a graduate degree in international relations, Jennifer has developed an expertise in commercial investigations and risk analysis for U.S. clients’ overseas investments, acquisitions, transactions and operations in a variety of geographies.

Dr. Robert Bunker is a Counter-Narco Insurgency Program Instructor for the Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (LA HIDTA), Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and Adjunct Faculty, School of Politics and Economics (SPE), Claremont Graduate University. He has delivered over two-hundred presentations— including papers and training—to law enforcement, military, academic and policy audiences including US Congressional Testimony. He has over two-hundred publications ranging from edited books and booklets through reports, chapters, articles/essays, response guidance, subject bibliographies and encyclopedia entries in academic, policy, law enforcement, and military venues. Among those are the work Red Teams and Counterterrorism Training (with Steve Sloan) and the edited works including Narcos Over the Border: Gangs, Cartels and Mercenaries, and Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers, Networks, Terrorism and Global Insurgency, and Non-State Threats and Future Wars .

Captain Kevin R. McCarthy, Delta Air Lines (Ret.), Principal, MoonRaker Associates, advising on transportation security and operations solutions, resilience, and other aspects of critical infrastructure protection. With over 33 years experience flying commercial and U.S. Air Force aircraft, Captain McCarthy was selected as one of Delta Airlines’ first captains of the new Boeing 777. During his career with Delta, Captain McCarthy served as an expert advisor on aviation and operations security to the U.S. government and the airline industry. As a senior official in the Air Line Pilots Association International, he notably directed the industry’s first Office of Intelligence & Emerging Threats.

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is also a Technology Research Analyst at CrucialPoint LLC, an Editor at Red Team Journal, and a PhD student in American University’s School of International Service. He has published on technology, strategic theory, and emerging threats in The Atlantic, West Point Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel, Infantry, Small Wars Journal, and other publications. He holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University.”

Rebecca Givner-Forbes started her career as a counterterrorism and Middle East analyst in 2004 at the Terrorism Research Center after graduating from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She will graduate from Georgetown University Law Center in May 2012, where she has focused on National Security law subjects and has continued to work part-time as an analyst. She has authored or co-authored several studies on counterterrorism and Middle Eastern politics for several US government agencies, law enforcement entities, and private companies. During 2007 and 2008, she worked in Singapore as the head of a Middle East analysis team at a counterterrorism think tank at Nanyang Technological University and earned a Master of Science degree in Strategic Studies. From 2004 to 2010, Rebecca also provided training to government, military, and private sector clients in counterterrorism, Arabic language and Arab culture, and Jihadist strategy and ideology. She speaks and reads Arabic, which she studied at Georgetown University, in Cairo, Egypt and in Damascus, Syria.

Jennifer Hardwick has been in the geo-political risk field since 1996. She worked for both Kroll and Pinkerton in their global assessment services’ regional analysis, product development, and client services teams. She joined Matt Devost’s leadership team at the Terrorism Research Center (later Total Intelligence Services) from 2003-2009 to stand up their subscription-based intelligence services, including in product development, client retention, editing, regional analysis, and training. There, she was highlighted in various print, electronic, and television media and gave multiple training presentations. She has been a regional analyst and senior editor for OSAC (US Department of State) since 2011.

Dr. Chris Flaherty is a commentator on security, defence and counter terrorism research, its application, and project management. Currently living in London. He is involved in the development of a “Scripted Agent Based Microsimulation Project”. This project began at the University of New South Wales, and has moved to the University of Wollongong (NSW, Australia). As well, this research incorporates affiliate team membership with the London Metropolitan Business School: Centre for International Business and Sustainability. He has also developed basic research and tools for vulnerability and resilience analysis. His current research work is on 3D Tactics and counter terrorism building vulnerability analysis for mass gathering commercial, industrial and shopping areas. He is currently a Senior Risk Consultant at Greymans Limited. And was recently made a Fellow of the UK Security Institute (April 2010).

Michael Brooks is an OODA analyst with a background in strong scholarship in international relations, regional studies, and world religions. He is also a freelance researcher, writer, and editor, contributing international analysis to a variety of print and online publications.

Alex Olesker is a Technology Research Analyst that specializes in science, technology, and security. He has experience working with law enforcement, private intelligence, multi-national corporations, and academia, and has written and lectured on terrorism, international security, infrastructure protection, investigations, intelligence, policing, cybersecurity, and analytics. Alex graduated from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Shlok Vaydia is currently Neoplat‘s Director of Product Management. He leads the team that builds tools, methodologies, and thinking that empowers governments, corporations, and communities to adapt to an increasingly uncertain future. He was recently named one of the top 100 tech entrepreneurs in New Orleans. Prior to this, Shlok was an Energy Security Analyst with a top think tank. There he examined global energy trends with a focus on infrastructure and the threat of supply disruption. Shlok’s work is deeply influenced by his strong understanding of the future of terrorism, technology, and governance. His insight is regularly published in various books, media outlets and quoted by some of the world’s smartest thinkers on warfare, intelligence, and peak oil.