Intelligence Vet Robert Ashley Appointed Chair of NextgenID Board of Advisors; Mohab Murrar Quoted

Robert Ashley Jr., a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has been selected as chair of information technology company NextgenID‘s board of advisors.

NextgenID CEO Mohab Murrar said in a statement published Monday agencies have a need for modernized identity, credential and access management infrastructures and the appointment of the two-time Wash100 Award recipient aligns with the company’s motivation to offer technologies designed to meet customer requirements.

Murrar also shared that Ashley has relevant experience in combating the problems that identity services are facing, such as “long-lead time appointments, required in-person enrollments, lack of alternative token support, and an inconvenient, unreliable infrastructure for credential management services, like unlocking cards, changing PINs and updating certificates.”

In his new chair post, Ashley will leverage knowledge gained from a long career spent in intelligence and defense positions. Before retiring, he was a DIA director. He was also Army deputy chief of staff, G-2, for which he oversaw intelligence, counterintelligence and security in his role as senior adviser to the secretary of the Army and Army chief of staff.

After reviewing NextgenID’s high-assurance Trusted Services Platform, Ashley believes that the company is taking the necessary steps to provide secure access for its customers.

“I’m convinced that this solution is an absolute necessity for our service members, their dependents and contractor community,” said Ashley.

According to Ashley, NextgenID collaborated with the National Institute for the Standards of Technology to establish the guidelines for Supervised, Remote, Identity Proofing.

Ashley was also director of intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command and the U.S. Central Command. In addition, he served as deputy chief of staff, intelligence for the International Security Assistance Force, as well as director of intelligence for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Currently, he is a principal on staff at the federal management consulting firm Deep Water Point. He also operates his own consulting firm called Ashley GLS, of which he is CEO.