David Tohn

A retired Army Colonel with over 24 years’ leadership experience in tactical and strategic intelligence, command, operations, strategic planning, and as a plank-holder in Army full-spectrum cyber operations, policy, planning, and capabilities development, David serves as the Chief Executive Officer of BTS Software Solutions.

As a trained strategic planner and operational leader with broad and deep experience in cyber operations and each of the intelligence disciplines (HUMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, All-Source, and special technical operations), David has proven success in integrating an understanding of the technical nature of intelligence and cyber operations with strategic planning, program management, resource management, and organizational leadership in order to create effective units and programs. He established or reorganized six units at the Service and Joint level to meet new mission requirements and leverage newly fielded capabilities. In the private sector, David led the transfer of advanced speech-to-text technologies from academia, creating a successful start-up company that grew to over 45 employees in under 18 months.

As a strategic leader, David last served in uniform as the NSA’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Mission Manager, synchronizing both SIGINT and CYBER operations in each theater and further served as the senior SIGINT and Cyber advisor to Commander, ISAF. He was the Senior Intelligence Planner for Commander, Multinational Forces Iraq, co-authoring the MNF-I Joint Campaign Plan and developing the supporting Theater Intelligence Plan for the Surge in 2006-2007. As well, he started working in cyber operations in 1999 where he helped lead the Army’s first offensive cyber capability, laying the organization, policy, human capital development, technical training, and materiel development foundations that ultimately evolved into the 780th Cyber Operations Brigade and underlies Army cyber policy to date.

As a thought leader, David has authored several books, peer-reviewed articles, and multiple op-eds on national security, organizational leadership, military intelligence programmatics, and cyber security operations topics. Overall, David brings the proven ability to align the talent, technology, and resources necessary to build an organization and capability around a strategic vision.