Janaki Kates

Janaki Kates is a national security consultant and commentator drawing on her nearly 18 year career at the CIA. Ms. Kates started at the CIA as a space and counterspace analyst, with a particular focus on reconnaissance, navigation, and orbital robotic systems. As an analytic manager, she led a variety of technical analytic teams that focused on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, cruise missiles, and counterproliferation operations. Ms. Kates also served as the Technical Director of Research and Analysis in the CIA’s Counterintelligence Mission Center.

In addition, Ms. Kates was an intelligence briefer to executives at the Department of State and National Security Council, an editor for the President’s Daily Brief, and served as the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Ms. Kates also spent time in the ODNI’s Systems and Resource Analyses, where she oversaw several Analyses of Alternatives to inform ODNI's budget build for a 15-year horizon. Most recently, Ms. Kates served as the Director of Government Affairs for Intelligence Programs at Northrop Grumman.

Ms. Kates has a BS in Aeronautical and Astronautical engineering from MIT, and a MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University. She lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and two children.