Michael Brown

Member, CNAS Board of Advisors

Partner at Shield Capital

Press: [email protected]

Michael Brown is a partner at the venture firm Shield Capital, as well as a distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Security and Technology.

He serves on the boards of advisors for key national security and technology think tanks, including the Center for a New American Security, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown, the USAF Academy’s Cyber Board, and the Reagan Institute’s National Security Innovation Base project. He also serves on the board of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

He is a member of the Council on Global Competition and Innovation, the Council on Foreign Relations, and a senior advisor to the Defense Panel at the Special Competitive Studies Project. He is also a former advisor to the U.S. Navy’s Science and Technology Board and a former visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He serves on the boards of Strider Technologies, Asimily, Nexla, and Code Metal and is a contributing author at Forbes, War on the Rocks, and Foreign Affairs.

Brown previously served as the director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) at the U.S. Department of Defense (2018–2022). During his tenure, DIU accelerated the adoption of 50 new, mission-critical capabilities by the U.S. military and spearheaded the creation of National Security Innovation Capital, the precursor to the Office of Strategic Capital.

From 2016 to 2018, Brown was a White House presidential innovation fellow, where he co-authored a seminal Pentagon study that served as a catalyst for the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), significantly strengthening the authorities of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Prior to civil service, Brown was the CEO of Symantec Corporation (2014–2016), leading what was then the world’s 10th largest software company. He is the former chairman and CEO of Quantum Corporation (1995–2003), a maker of disk drives, tape drives, and storage subsystems.

Brown received his BA in economics from Harvard and his MBA from Stanford University.