Driving operational results. Informing consequential decisions. Directing data collection.
Glawe Strategic Advisors helps CEOs, boards, investors, and governments assess national security and geopolitical exposure, identify opportunity, set priorities, and organize the enterprise to act through the Mission Center Model.
David leads every engagement personally and brings in trusted specialists when the work requires, remaining accountable for the result.
Many organizations have a data strategy. The question is whether it is tied to the mission, the operational outputs required for success, and the business structure to deliver them. This assessment answers four questions:
In intelligence terms, the answers are collection priorities.
Where the organization is not structured to act, the Mission Center Model provides the structure to deliver operational results.
Client receives:
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 draws on senior threat-finance leadership in the U.S. intelligence community and earlier experience as a licensed financial advisor.
Using the Mission Center Model, David aligns teams, resources, authority, and accountability around the outcome, with a single accountable executive and a resourced plan.
David explains how agencies set requirements, budget, buy, and partner, and builds a market strategy around real mission needs. For government leaders in the United States and abroad, he stands up or reorganizes intelligence and security functions around the Mission Center Model.
Where to begin. Every engagement starts with an initial consultation, at no cost, to define the matter and recommend the right engagement.
Discuss a potential engagementDavid developed the Mission Center Model from an approach he first encountered on a joint special operations task force during the War on Terror. He has adapted and expanded it in every organization he has led since, making data and artificial intelligence part of the mission and bringing in policy, legal, and public affairs from the outset. It rests on four principles.
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.
As Deputy National Intelligence Manager for Threat Finance and Transnational Organized Crime, he led financial intelligence collection priorities for U.S. intelligence organizations, including budget, coordination, and data solutions to expose illicit networks and sanctions evasion. A National Intelligence Collection Officer reported to him. He received the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal.
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. 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.
David has testified before the Senate and the House in open and closed sessions, classified and unclassified, as Under Secretary of Homeland Security and as a private-sector CEO.
“That makes great sense to me.”
Senator Chris Coons, responding to David’s proposal for a federal coordination center
More than 100 national and local interviews on national security, transnational criminal organizations, and insurance fraud.
Interviewed byCNN • Fox Business • CNBC • NBC • CBS • ABC • PBS • NPR • USA Today
David is a former senior intelligence officer who has spent his career where intelligence turns into action. He began his federal career as an FBI Special Agent, rising to Assistant Section Chief of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section, where he worked to disrupt the financing of terrorist networks and transnational criminal organizations. He deployed to Iraq and Africa in support of Joint Special Operations Command, served as a Deputy National Intelligence Manager 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.
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 David to discuss executive advisory, a defined project, a time-sensitive matter, or a speaking engagement. A brief note on the matter, timeline, and parties involved is sufficient. Inquiries are handled in confidence.
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