Corin R. Stone

Corin R. Stone is a senior executive and national security leader with more than 20 years of executive branch and academic experience, both as a lawyer and in senior strategic leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).  Ms. Stone is a frequent speaker on the topics of public service, national security law and policy, and women in leadership.

From January 2022 through March 2024, Ms. Stone was the Principal Deputy General Counsel and the Deputy Director of the Defense Legal Services Agency at DoD, where she provided legal advice and guidance directly to the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and to senior leaders across the Defense enterprise on a broad range of strategic matters, including military operations, industry engagement, international affairs, data and artificial intelligence, budget and acquisition, legislative and public relations, investigations and oversight, and ethics.  As the number two lawyer in DoD, Ms. Stone led and oversaw a global team of 800 legal professionals with a $250 million budget and was responsible for legal advice provided by 13,000 lawyers across the military.

Prior to joining DoD, Ms. Stone was a Scholar-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor at the American University Washington College of Law, where she taught, conducted research, and developed programming related to responsible artificial intelligence, emerging technology policy, and national security.

Until August 2020, Ms. Stone served as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Strategy & Engagement, leading Intelligence Community (IC) initiatives on artificial intelligence, the 21st Century workforce, and acquisition agility; overseeing the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity and the Office of Science and Technology; creating IC-wide innovation and net assessment organizations; re-imagining data and information management for the digital age; establishing IC policy and strategy; and overseeing engagement with Congress and the public.  Directly prior to this role, Ms. Stone led a major transformation of the ODNI, developing more efficient and effective approaches to accomplishing the mission, and leading cultural and organizational change across the agency.

From 2014-2017, Ms. Stone served as the Executive Director of the NSA, the number three role in the agency.  In this capacity, Ms. Stone led and supported all aspects of NSA’s global enterprise, including cyber operations, cybersecurity, and foreign intelligence, and representing NSA within the IC, across the Executive and Legislative branches, with Congress, and with the public.

In 2005, Ms. Stone helped create the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and served in a number of key leadership roles, including as the first Principal Deputy General Counsel, the first IC Information Sharing & Safeguarding Executive, and the Assistant DNI for Policy & Strategy.  During this time, Ms. Stone provided critical legal advice and support directly to the Director of National Intelligence, created the regulatory framework for the ODNI and the IC, led the harmonization of U.S. person privacy protections across the IC, led the development of the 2014 National Intelligence Strategy, and oversaw the formulation and implementation of IC‐wide policy and strategy on the full range of intelligence issues.

Ms. Stone began her career in federal service as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Keeton, District Judge on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She then joined the U.S. Department of State, where she was an attorney‐adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and served for eight months in Iraq, first as an Associate General Counsel in the Coalition Provisional Authority, and then as the first Legal Adviser to Ambassador Negroponte and the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. While at the State Department, Ms. Stone also represented the U.S. Government before the Iran‐U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague.

Ms. Stone was awarded a Presidential Rank Award in 2015 and is the recipient of the DoD Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service, the IC’s National Intelligence Superior Service Medal, the IC’s National Intelligence Reform Medal, the IC Legal Lifetime Achievement Award, the NSA’s Exceptional Civilian Service Award, and the Department of State’s Superior Honor Award and Meritorious Honor Award.

Prior to her federal service, Ms. Stone practiced commercial litigation at Pepper Hamilton, LLP, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She also worked part‐time for the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

Ms. Stone has published numerous articles related to artificial intelligence and the IC, as well as a research paper outlining necessary steps to scale and speed the integration of artificial intelligence into the IC, which includes a model risk framework for the IC.  Ms. Stone is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.