Luncheon Discussion on BENS Campaigns with Ian Wallace, Chief Program Officer (Austin)

Join BENS members and guests for a luncheon discussion on the current BENS portfolio of programs and services with Ian Wallace, BENS Chief Program Officer.

Ian will discuss BENS’s three major campaigns:  Homeland Resilience and Response, Strengthening Supply Chains, and Mobilizing Private Capital. He will also cover visits, events, production, partnerships, and more that contribute to these campaigns.

He will be able to talk about the program process, from how topics are identified, how partners are chosen, the different ways that BENS engages with our national security partners, and how members can join these project efforts.  In particular he will be able to discuss BENS’s plans to engage regions more closely in the campaign work. Ian has served as BENS Chief Program Officer since June 2025 and is one of the chief architects of the three campaigns.

Speaker Background

As Chief Program Officer, Ian Wallace is responsible for overseeing the full portfolio of programs and services that deliver value to the national security community.  A member of the executive team, he partners with the BENS Board of Directors and broader membership to define a clear vision and strategy across all of the organization’s service lines.

Ian is one of very few people to have held senior, TS-cleared positions in both the U.S. and British governments. Immediately prior to joining BENS, Ian was a senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, most recently serving as Deputy Chief Strategy Officer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).  Before CISA, Ian was a Senior Adviser in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, where he focused on cybersecurity capacity building and led the Department’s support for Ukraine’s cyber defense—including in the aftermath of Russia’s re-invasion in February 2022.

Prior to U.S. Government service, Ian contributed his expertise at several leading think tanks.  He began as a Visiting Fellow for cybersecurity at the Brookings Institution, went on to found and direct the Cybersecurity Initiative at New America, then served as a Senior Fellow in the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He was also a fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Earlier in his career, before becoming a U.S. citizen, Ian served as a senior official in the British Ministry of Defence. His roles included several Whitehall-based policy positions—such as Assistant Private Secretary (i.e., Deputy Chief of Staff) to the UK Defence Secretary—and three operational tours (Pristina, Basra, and Baghdad) as Policy/Political Adviser to senior UK commanders. For example, he served as the POLAD to Gen Petraeus’s British Deputy during the Surge in Iraq. Prior to that, he led the team providing policy guidance to the UK’s Chief of Joint Operations during the early stages of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. His final posting was as Defence Policy & Nuclear Counsellor at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., where he led teams managing the UK-U.S. defense policy, nuclear, and military cyber relationships.

Ian holds a Master of Arts in Ancient and Modern History from Oxford University and became a U.S. citizen in July 2016.