Jacob Breach

Jacob Breach is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he leads efforts to track, expose, and counter foreign influence, focusing specifically on how investment, philanthropy, academic funding, and media and technology ownership are exploited to shape U.S. policy, public opinion, and institutions.

Jacob spent 15 years in the U.S. intelligence community, repeatedly building new partnerships across government, international allies, and the private sector. Most recently, he served as Director for Strategic Engagements at the National Intelligence Council, leading its analytic outreach program. He was a founding member of the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where he built the center’s external engagement strategy and led public communication campaigns. Earlier, in ODNI’s Office of Legislative Affairs, he led congressional outreach and established a bipartisan private-sector engagement program with the Senate Intelligence Committee on foreign investment and foreign influence. He also advised senior ODNI and U.S. Cyber Command leadership on strategic communications, served as speechwriter to multiple directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and completed a tour on the National Security Council staff.

Jacob holds an M.S. in strategic intelligence and a certificate in intelligence studies (China), both from the National Intelligence University, and a B.A. in political science and history from Purdue University. He is an alumnus of FDD’s National Security and Media Fellows programs.