Michael L. Collins

Michael L. Collins has more than three decades of experience and leadership at the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence and national security community. He retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the top tier of its Senior Intelligence Service, capping a career of executive roles directing the full range of CIA and broader U.S. intelligence community responsibilities. His positions included acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, CIA chief strategy officer, deputy assistant director of the CIA for the East Asia and Pacific Mission Center, chief of staff to the CIA deputy director, and director of CIA analysis for regional and global portfolios. Mr. Collins directed some of the U.S. government’s most authoritative analyses while pioneering “net assessments” of the competitive balance across geopolitical, technological, economic, and intelligence domains. An intelligence enterprise integrator, he designed the CIA’s holistic strategy for major power competition—the CIA Strategic Playbook—embedding new frameworks for measuring performance, prioritizing key technologies, and strengthening intelligence diplomacy and partnerships. Mr. Collins is the founder and managing director of Advantigence LLC, where he advises clients on geopolitical risk; advanced applications of artificial intelligence and other technologies for investigative and foresight purposes; and intelligence-based sources of advantage and resilience in a contested global order. Mr. Collins is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Rank Award, multiple CIA Director’s Awards, and the Director of National Intelligence Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Union College and completed a master’s degree, along with additional graduate study, at George Washington University.