William McCormick
Executive Mosaic is honored to introduce CIA Director William Burns as a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient, the most prestigious award in all of government contracting (GovCon), for his leadership and efforts to protect U.S. national interests against its adversaries such as China and Russia, while managing the CIA’s workforce and streamlining the agency’s application process.
This marks the second consecutive Wash100 Award for Burns, who secured his Wash100 win last year for driving national security strategies and defense, developing technology solutions and promoting workforce initiatives.
Visit Wash100.com to cast a vote for William Burns as one of your 10 favorite leaders in the federal and government sectors.
In March 2021, Burns took the helm of the CIA after receiving Senate confirmation. In an NPR interview published in July 2021, Burns talked about his four priorities: China; technology; partnerships; and people.
He described China as the “single biggest geopolitical challenge that the United States faces far out into the 21st century” and noted that his office is exploring ways to forward-deploy China specialists, including analysts, technologists and operations officers, to compete effectively.
“And then, of course, on technology issues again, on China: making sure that we’re staying ahead of the game in how we innovate and how we deal with phenomena like ubiquitous technical surveillance, which is basically what happens when you have smart cities and very advanced capabilities on the part of the Chinese intelligence service to make it much more complicated to do espionage overseas,” Burns noted. “So we have to transform our tradecraft, not just at the CIA, but across the intelligence community as well.”
In October 2021, he announced plans to create a CIA mission center that would focus on China and hold meetings on a weekly basis to address issues and threats posed by the Chinese government.
He also mentioned another mission center that would deal with technology and transnational issues. A senior official said the Transnational and Technology Mission Center would enable the CIA to address the issues of climate change, humanitarian disasters, global health and other disruption caused by new technologies.
President Biden turned to Burns to help deal with international issues, including Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine.
In November 2021, Burns was reportedly deployed to Moscow to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials to convey U.S. concerns about the buildup of Russian troops at the Ukrainian border.
During his confirmation hearing, he told lawmakers about the importance of “firmness and consistency” and collaboration with allies and partners in responding to Russian aggression.
“We have more effects sometimes on Putin’s calculus, when he sees responses coming, firm responses coming not just from the United States, but from our European allies and others as well. So, it pays off to work hard at widening that circle of countries who are going to push back,” he added.
He appeared before Stanford University students in October to discuss national security issues and his vision for the CIA. During the talk, he mentioned his plans to speed up the agency’s application process to encourage more specialists to join the CIA workforce.
“It takes way too long today — as long as two years — from application to final clearance,” Burns said. “We have a plan now to cut that to about half a year, which is easier said than done, but it’s absolutely essential to create a more diverse workforce.”
During the NPR interview, he highlighted the role he and other CIA personnel play in support of policymakers.
“And my job, our job, at CIA is to support and inform policymakers so they make the best possible choices; it’s not to become policymakers,” he said. “And so what that means, I think, is that our obligation is to deliver, in an unvarnished way without any political or policy agenda, the best and most well-grounded intelligence that we can collect to help the president and all of my colleagues in this government make smart choices.”
Burns came to the agency from the international affairs think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he served as president.
Burns is a career diplomat who spent 33 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. He held various roles including deputy secretary at the State Department, undersecretary of State for political affairs and ambassador to Jordan and Russia.
Executive Mosaic congratulates William Burns and the CIA on his Wash100 Award selection. Visit Wash100.com to vote for William Burns and who you believe deserves the recognition as the most significant leader to the GovCon community and federal landscape.
