Tom Ayres

With extensive experience as a leader and advisor, Tom Ayres was appointed by the President to serve as the 20th General Counsel of the U.S. Air Force. In that role, he was the Chief Legal and Compliance officer for an organization with an annual operating revenue equivalent to a Fortune 20 company.

He also led a team to draft and then implement the legislation creating the Space Force, simultaneously becoming the first General Counsel for the U.S. Space Force. Tom spent the bulk of his professional career on active duty in the Army. In his final position in uniform, Major General Ayres supervised, recruited and trained the Army's 10,000-member Judge Advocate General's Corps, supporting 1 million soldiers and 200,000 worldwide civilian employees.

Throughout his career, Tom has been at the forefront of advising strategic leaders to transform organizations to adapt to the age of information technology, big data, and virtual services. With extensive litigation experience early in his career, he also completed multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as the principal legal advisor to commanders during combat operations. During his time in the Pentagon, Tom was responsible for compliance and investigations service-wide, and often also advised entities as diverse as the military academies, the NFL, and government leaders in Israel, Colombia and Myanmar, on technology transformation and compliance strategies.

Tom is a distinguished graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He began his military career as an airborne rifle platoon leader in Italy. He then earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Law.