About the IAPP

The Honorable Ellen E. McCarthy is the Chairwoman and CEO of the Trust in Media 

Cooperative, where she leads efforts to restore trust in the modern information ecosystem. 

Under her leadership, TIM drives innovation and fosters collaboration to help the public 

recognize and value quality information. 

Ms. McCarthy brings over 30-years of leadership experience in national security and 

intelligence. As Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research 

(INR) (2019-2021), she led efforts to provide intelligence insights supporting foreign policy, 

drive innovation and integrate intelligence across global missions. Prior to this, she served as the 

Chief Operating Officer of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) (2015-2018), 

focusing on private-sector partnerships, aligning resources to agency priorities and agile 

governance. 

In the private sector, she was President of Noblis NSP, delivering cybersecurity and data 

analytics solutions to the Intelligence Community (IC), and President of the Intelligence and 

National Security Alliance (INSA), where she advanced cybersecurity, acquisition and security 

intelligence policies. She also served as a Research Associate at the Institute for Defense 

Analysis (IDA) where she supported programs related to U.S. nuclear security. She started as a 

freelance reporter and circulation manager for THE CAPITAL Newspaper in Annapolis, MD. 

Her earlier roles in the public sector included in the Office the UnderSecretary of Defense for 

Intelligence, overseeing policy, security and human capital, the U.S. Coast Guard, where she 

integrated the intelligence program into the IC. She started as an all-source intelligence analyst at 

the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Atlantic Fleet.

Ms McCarthy is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School and on the 

boards of SAP NS2, U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, Penn State Applied Research 

Lab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the George Mason National Security Institute and 

Babel Street. 

A graduate of the University of South Carolina and a Masters of Public Policy from the 

University of Maryland.