Flaum Leadership Lecture Series Presents Mitch D. Silber

Cyber Intelligence and Counter Terrorism within the NYPD: A View from the Inside

Mitch Silber is a principal and founder of the Guardian Group, which provides bespoke intelligence, security, and digital security advice to safeguard critical human, corporate, and governmental assets worldwide.

Silber is a professional global political risk and intelligence analyst who has more than 20 years of experience creating, building, and leading analytic teams and organizations dedicated to providing high-end finished intelligence, bespoke consulting, and advisory work for a wide range of corporate, financial, and governmental clients. He is a regular commentator on political risk- and terrorism-related issues for both print and broadcast news outlets.

At FTI Consulting, he was the head and founder of the Geopolitical Intelligence practice, and at K2 Intelligence, he was the executive managing director of the Threat Intelligence and Data Analytics practice areas.

Prior to his work at K2, Silber served as director of intelligence analysis at the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for almost eight years and was responsible for building out and managing the Analytic and Cyber units. He supervised the research, collection, and analysis for the Intelligence Division’s entire portfolio of ongoing terrorism-related investigations and was responsible for strategic assessments of emerging and future threats to New York City. Silber was involved in internal planning, development, and new unit creation for the department, and he initiated and managed relations with both foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Silber has presented on behalf of the NYPD to the White House, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Counter Terrorism Center, and he has testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He also co-authored the 2007 NYPD report “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” and is the author of The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West, published in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Silber is currently a visiting lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where he teaches a Modern Urban Terrorism. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at SIPA and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Silber received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania before spending nine years in corporate finance as a partner at the Carson Group and later as a principal at Evolution Capital LLC, a boutique investment bank. Following his work in corporate finance, Silber earned his master’s degree in international relations from Columbia University.

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