Glawe Strategic Advisors
Senior counsel for CEOs, boards, and governments

Where national security meets business strategy.

Glawe Strategic Advisors helps CEOs, boards, investors, and governments decide what to do when national-security threats and policy shifts reach their organizations, and identify the business opportunity that a changing geopolitical environment creates.

Unanimously confirmed by the Senate as DHS Under Secretary, David Glawe also served at the White House and spent more than six years as a private-sector chief executive. He connects strategy and policy at the highest levels of government with the experience of running an organization and leading national security operations.

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Now accepting clients

David J. Glawe, Founder and Principal Advisor
David J. Glawe · Founder & Principal Advisor
Services

Senior counsel with a clear scope.

David leads every engagement personally, from the first conversation through delivery. When the work calls for added expertise, he brings in trusted specialists and remains accountable for the result.

Every engagement concludes with accountable owners, defined measures, and a resourced plan.

01

Intelligence, Data & AI

For agencies, companies, and portfolio companies. David helps leaders integrate intelligence, data, and technology, including AI, into how the organization decides and operates. That work begins with collection management: identifying the information the mission requires, where it resides, and whether it can be lawfully obtained and afforded, then directing its acquisition and use. He also redesigns teams and workflows and keeps people accountable for judgment and results.

02

Investment, Regulatory & Geopolitical Risk and Opportunity

Before and after a transaction. Drawing on senior threat-finance leadership in the U.S. intelligence community and earlier experience as a licensed financial advisor, David gives investors and boards an independent assessment of nation-state, sanctions, supply-chain, and cross-border exposure, including transnational criminal organizations, corrupt government officials, and foreign intelligence influence. He helps leadership anticipate regulation and policy shifts, and identify where a changing geopolitical order creates business opportunity.

03

Government Missions & Markets

For government and industry. David helps government leaders stand up or reorganize intelligence and security functions around the Mission Center Model, and helps companies understand how agencies decide, buy, and partner.

Experience

Leadership across national security, the White House, and the private sector.

Signature work

The Mission Center Model

During the War on Terror, David was assigned to a joint special operations task force, where he worked inside the Mission Center Model. He has used it in every organization he has led since, evolving it across national security, the U.S. intelligence community, and the private sector. It scales from a focused team to an entire enterprise and rests on four principles.

  • Mission First.Define the outcome, then build backward. The mission, not the organizational chart, determines the team.
  • One Integrated Team.Intelligence, operations, data and AI, and subject matter expertise operate as a single unit. The organization owns the data; the mission directs its collection and is accountable for how data and AI outputs are used.
  • Enterprise Alignment.Policy, legal and risk, government affairs, and public affairs are integrated from the outset, not consulted at the end.
  • Accountable Execution.Each mission has a single accountable executive, defined performance measures, and a resourced plan with clear milestones.
Department of Homeland Security

David reorganized DHS Intelligence around Mission Centers. Before the 2018 midterm elections, he stood up the DHS Election Mission Center. He received the Department of Homeland Security Distinguished Service Medal, its highest honor.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

As Deputy National Intelligence Manager for Threat Finance and Transnational Organized Crime, he integrated financial intelligence collection and operations across multiple national security agencies into one prioritized mission, and developed new data solutions to expose illicit networks and sanctions evasion. He received the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal.

National Insurance Crime Bureau

He restructured NICB around three mission areas: government affairs and advocacy, intelligence and operations, and education. In 2025 alone, NICB reviewed 208,956 questionable claim submissions and identified 1,647 new organized crime rings, and legislatures passed 83 bills to combat insurance fraud and crime.

For clients, the model starts with the result and works backward, aligning functions, people, data, and resources to deliver it.

News media

Media interviews.

More than 100 national and local interviews on national security, fraud, and organized theft.

Interviewed byCNN Fox Business CNBC NBC CBS ABC PBS NPR USA Today

National TVSeptember 2018 U.S. powerless to fight drone attacks, top official says Weeks later, Congress granted DHS counter-drone authority in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. CBS This Morning · with Jeff Pegues Broadcast TVMay 2026 Avoiding fraud after natural disasters On organized contractor-fraud networks exploiting disaster recovery, during Contractor Fraud Awareness Week. 11Alive · NBC Atlanta
About David

A career of service and leadership.

David is a senior intelligence officer who has spent his career where intelligence turns into action. He deployed to Iraq and Africa in support of Joint Special Operations Command, led threat-finance work across U.S. intelligence agencies at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and served as Chief Intelligence Officer of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

As a Senate-confirmed Under Secretary, he led intelligence across DHS’s 16 operational components, including the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CISA, and FEMA. He then led the National Insurance Crime Bureau, serving more than 1,200 insurers, with operations extending worldwide.

Career

  1. 2020–2026President & Chief Executive OfficerNational Insurance Crime Bureau
  2. 2017–2020Under Secretary for Intelligence & Analysis (Senate-confirmed)U.S. Department of Homeland Security
  3. 2017Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Homeland SecurityThe White House
  4. 2015–2017Assistant Commissioner & Chief Intelligence OfficerU.S. Customs and Border Protection
  5. 2012–2014Deputy National Intelligence Manager for Threat Finance and Transnational Organized CrimeOffice of the Director of National Intelligence
  6. EarlierAssistant Section Chief, Terrorist Financing Operations SectionFederal Bureau of Investigation

B.A., University of Northern Iowa · Certificate, Harvard University · Earlier in his career, held securities and insurance licenses as a financial advisor · Native of Davenport, Iowa; lives in Chicago with his family.

Contact

Request a consultation.

Now accepting clients

Contact Glawe Strategic Advisors to discuss ongoing executive advisory, a defined project, a time-sensitive matter, or a speaking engagement. A brief note describing the matter, the timeline, and the parties involved is sufficient to begin. Inquiries come directly to David and are handled in confidence.

david@glaweadvisors.com LinkedIn