James Ellis

James Ellis
Orbis

James (Jim) Ellis is Orbis’s Vice President for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Programs and has led analytic and OSINT projects with US partners and allies in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. During his 22 years with CIA, he served as the Senior Executive Assistant to
Director of National Intelligence Coats, the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) Briefer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the CIA’s Faculty Representative and Associate Professor at the National Defense University.

He led groups and divisions covering nearly every intelligence topic at CIA’s Open Source Enterprise (OSE). He served overseas for seven years leading OSE bureaus responsible for the Middle East and for South and Southeast Asia. He also was an all-source analyst on Southeast Asia and counterterrorism.

Before joining CIA, he taught at Harvard, the Australian National University (Fulbright Scholar), and the Victoria University of Wellington (Knox Scholar). He holds a BA in Economics with High Honors (Phi Beta Kappa) from Swarthmore College and an MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. He speaks Indonesian.