Jami Miscik

Miscik was born in Chicago and grew up in Redondo Beach, California. She received her B.A. with honors from Pepperdine University in Political Science and Economics in 1980 and an M.A. in International Studies from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1982. She serves on the boards of General Motors[9], EMC Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Pivotal Labs, In-Q-Tel [10], the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Ditchley Foundation. In October 2022, she joined as a senior adviser to the newly formed geopolitical advisory team at the asset management firm Lazard.

Jami Miscik began her CIA career in 1983 as an economic analyst, working on Third World debt and the analysis of political instability before leading Directorate of Intelligence analytic programs on economic competitiveness and civil technologies. While at the CIA, Miscik ran a complex quantitative and qualitative program to forecast political instability in 40 countries based on 25 indicators.

From 1995 to 1996, she was seconded to the National Security Council as Director for Intelligence Programs, where she had oversight responsibility for covert action programs and special reconnaissance missions. From 1996 to 1997 she was executive assistant to George Tenet, who in July 1997 was sworn in as director after having served two years as deputy director. In January 1998 Miscik became the deputy director of the Nonproliferation Center and in January 1999 Director of Transnational Issues.

Between 2002 and 2005 Miscik served as the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence, during which time she was responsible for all CIA analysis and for preparation of the President's Daily Brief, an exclusive intelligence compilation that goes only to the President and select senior members of his national security team. During the run-up to the Iraq War she was one of a number of CIA officials who pushed back against the efforts to link Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. In January 2003 she threatened to resign in protest of the pressure exerted by Scooter Libby, then the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. In February 2005, she joined the exodus of senior CIA officials that followed the arrival of Porter Goss as Director of Central Intelligence.