Michael F. Walker is a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Walker spent 30 years with the Central Intelligence Agency, including 18 of those years working abroad in various locations and served as Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Near East and South Asia Division (the CIA’s largest division) from February 2007 to July 2010.
As Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, Mr. Walker was responsible for CIA’s wartime intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and worked closely with CIA Directors General Michael Hayden and Leon Panetta on critical high impact intelligence operations involving Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries in the Middle East and South Asia. Mr. Walker has traveled abroad extensively on sensitive intelligence missions and also frequently interacted with the National Security Council, Department of Defense, Department of State, NSA, and FBI on matters of national security. His other senior positions at CIA Headquarters were Deputy Chief of the Special Activities Division from 2000 to 2002 and Chief of Operations in the Counterterrorism Center from 1990 to 1991.
Prior to his work in the CIA, Mr. Walker served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps and as a Peace Corps volunteer managing a fisheries project in India.
Mr. Walker holds an M.A. degree in International Affairs (Asian Studies) from Ohio University and a B.S. Degree in Zoology (Ichthyology and Entomology) from Ohio State University. In addition to his work with The Chertoff Group, Mr. Walker is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
Expertise:
Middle East and South Asia affairs
Intelligence operations
