Rare is the opportunity to ask a former CIA executive — turned private sector business strategist, turned venture capital partner — anything that might exist at the fore of inquiring minds. Fermata Insights had just that chance when we sat down with Stephanie Bellistri, formerly of the CIA and Palantir, currently serving as General Partner at New North Ventures. Bellistri, consummate dynamo, thoughtful leader and eternally committed student, shared on everything from recruiting to the CIA, to the evolution of technologies during her tenure in government, and what she would tell new-generation aspirants considering the pursuit of a future in Intelligence.
How did your career start in Intelligence? What drew you to the field?
It was a winding road, but I can probably trace the roots of my interest in intelligence all the way back to my early days when my parents instilled in us a sense of curiosity about and appreciation for the world beyond our shores. We lived in France when I was a little girl so when we moved back to the US we hosted friends visiting from overseas and our dinner table conversations often reflected the global issues affecting our country at the time, like expanding Soviet power, terrorist threats in Europe, and instability in Central America. I’m sure the fact that my father read Winston Churchill books to us at bedtime also had some influence on me!
The summer after my sophomore year of college, I switched my major to Russian Studies and was fortunate enough to have an inspiring Russian language professor and advisor who was instrumental in opening my eyes to how essential it is to explore and understand a culture while learning a language. This led me to look at the former Soviet Union, the region and global dynamics in a different light. Because I switched majors before my junior year, I had to play catchup on courses and took a Russian language summer immersion program at Georgetown the summer between junior and senior years. I spent 10 hours a day studying under a couple who were in exile from the Soviet Union due to a book the husband published, and this is where I gained firsthand exposure to the power dynamics between the US and Russia and the role that individuals and governments can play in standing up to countries and leaders who do not share our democratic values.
Midway through my senior year in college, my Russian professor suggested I apply to the Central Intelligence Agency and made an introduction. I was wary but met with a representative out of curiosity and after a series of interviews and meetings realized it was a natural fit. It wasn’t until later after I’d joined the Agency that I came to understand the important relationship CIA had with colleges and universities in identifying and recruiting new officers, particularly those with relevant language skills.
If you hadn’t entered the Intelligence field, where do you think you might have landed?
I’ve always been intrigued by human nature and what factors motivate and influence human behavior. When I took a psychology course in high school it really tapped this interest, so I set out to major in psychology in college and landed what I thought was a dream apprenticeship my freshman year with a research psychologist. However, he turned out to be so brusk and detached and had a clinical approach to his work and research that it completely turned me off of psychology. I realized as time went on that this elemental interest in the human psyche and how humans engage with the world played a role in my interest in Intelligence, but I’ve always been interested in the power of communications so perhaps something in that line of work.
Your career trajectory has spanned both the public and private sectors by this point. Can you speak to some of the similarities and/or contrasts you have seen between the two?
The parallels are striking but not always easy to discern when you are living it up close. When I was first contemplating leaving the Agency I struggled with the inability to conceive a world where any mission could be as critical and where I felt as passionately about my work as I did at the Agency. With over two decades in, I had no sense of how my experiences, skills and passion could translate to something in the private sector in an equally meaningful way. However, I had the benefit of great counsel from some former colleagues who had already made this journey and when I met with leaders at Palantir who shared the passion and commitment to national security that had become part of my DNA, I was able to envision a world beyond the USG and have come to see how strong the parallels are when working on common missions from a different vantage point.
Beyond the natural alignments of mission-driven work, it’s always about the people. You have the basic threads of leadership, communication, problem-solving and resilience and you have to commit time and resources to building a strong team, big or small, in order to succeed. All organizations face similar human and social dynamics particularly as they grow and evolve, but in high-consequence missions and organizations the need to excel in these facets is existential. The Agency is a highly dynamic and results-oriented organization where you are given a lot of autonomy and can have outsized impact on our national security at a very early stage in your career, but at the end of the day it is still a government institution with a strong and increasingly rigid framework the farther we get away from 9/11. In the technology start-up ecosystem, it’s inspiring to see the high level of creativity and risk tolerance and rapid pace of decision-making that are driving innovation and ultimately enhancing our economic resilience and national security. My perspective on the private sector may be slightly skewed as it is through the lens of security-related technologies and companies, but there are some important lessons the USG’s national security apparatus should take from the private sector in ensuring that technology innovation exceeds that of our adversaries.
Can you describe the level of technological change you saw during your tenure at the CIA, and what kinds of innovations drastically improved mission efficiencies?
The pace of technological advancements over my time at the CIA was staggering, particularly in the advancement of AI, autonomous systems, cybersecurity and communications. I had an Agency-issued ‘mobile phone’ in the early 1990s the size and weight of a large brick! While many of the technologies we leveraged in HUMINT operations were sensitive and bespoke, I witnessed revolutionary and transformative technology developments both within the intelligence community and the private sector that created major shifts in our ability to tackle existential threats. It’s essential to understand it was a two-way street – the private sector was aggressively developing technologies we were bringing to bear in a wide range of operational missions and conflicts – from the Kosovo conflict to Iran weapons of mass destruction to al-Qa’ida – and in parallel the IC was playing a critical role in developing technologies that would ultimately be commercialized to the benefit of broader society.
After entering the private sector, did you see technology that you were already familiar with from your time at The Agency?
The intelligence and defense communities have a long history of technology innovation that has driven significant technological advancements in the US dating back to WWII. Fast forward, during my tenure there were some highly notable and transformative collaborations between the private sector and the IC. In the early 1990s, the CIA developed advanced image-processing techniques that detected changes in aerial imagery of missile sites and – through collaboration with the medical community – these same algorithms were ultimately transferred to support mammography analysis, dramatically reducing the number of deaths from breast cancer. Around the same time, CIA established its venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, which was instrumental in investing in technology that started within the CIA and eventually became Google Earth. The lines have become so blurred between consumer and national security technologies with the rapidly evolving nature of innovation, and at New North we are focused on continuing to foster and invest in these types of collaborations.
It’s somewhat ironic that I had very little exposure to technologies like Palantir while I was working at the Agency but after I left, I gained a new and more objective appreciation for the powerful role that technology and private-public sector collaboration had played in almost every aspect of my work at CIA. For much of my career I worked on proliferation-related threats, from Russian ICBMS to Iran’s missile and CBW programs to al-Qa’ida WMD, all inherently complex and technical in nature. As a result I had the benefit of working closely with my S&T colleagues to develop tech-enabled humint operations that exposed me to technologies that have ultimately been commercialized and seen the light of day in the private sector, particularly around WMD detection and communications.
What would you say to a young person who is considering a career in intelligence today?
It’s hard for me to imagine a more impactful and rewarding career than one in intelligence, even with the expanding role that the private sector plays in defense of our nation and allies. While the IC has taken a beating in the media and politically in recent years, this is not particularly new and I maintain a strong conviction that the intelligence community needs to continue playing a central, apolitical role in strengthening our national and economic security and resilience. It’s easy for me to encourage any young person who has a deep interest in international issues, national security and the critical role the US plays in defending democratic values to pursue this path. It is a tough path, it’s challenging, and it’s not sexy and glamorous like you see in movies and TV, but you will play a role in informing and influencing some of the most pressing national security issues our country has ever faced and have tangible and transformational impact on global dynamics.
What goes through your mind when you watch an action movie about covert CIA officers?
I have a very different perspective on this now than I did back in late 2001. When the show 24 came out shortly after 9/11, we were facing existential threats and deeply immersed in the battle against al-Qa’ida. I was working 24/7, traveling globally and raising very young children and I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth or mental energy to sit down and watch a show that at the time I thought was a poor dramatization of the very issues we were facing real-time as a nation. However, I realized over time – and with some encouragement from Agency colleagues who got completely hooked on 24 and then Homeland – that there is an element of escapism and pure entertainment that comes from shows of this genre and they actually do get some things right. In the past two decades the caliber of films and shows like these have dramatically improved, I think in part because there is closer collaboration and consultation between the film and television industries and people who have deep experience in the intelligence community. In some notable cases like The Red Sparrow and Spycraft Entertainment, the stories are being written and produced by former colleagues of mine who are deeply committed to portraying the complex and layered nuances of our work in a more realistic light. So, I am a lot more forgiving now when I watch films and shows in this genre, but still at times find myself saying out loud ‘this would never happen!’
