Dave Pitts is a senior national security executive, board member, advisor, and veteran with extensive experience in intelligence, great power competition, counterterrorism, and special operations. Dave served as Assistant Director of CIA for South and Central Asia, led the historic National Resources Division and the agency’s two largest field stations, and held leadership roles in the Counterterrorism Center. Dave has extensive experience in Afghanistan. Dave spent the bulk of his military career in elite units focusing on intelligence and special operations. Dave is a co-founder of The Cipher Brief’s Gray Zone Group and a thought leader who regularly writes and speaks on great power competition, the Gray Zone, Cognitive Warfare, and emerging global issues. Dave cycles, kayaks, and parachutes out of WWII-vintage C-47s in his spare time.