Kristen Fish

Meet Kristen

Kristen is a Senior Advisor with McChrystal Group and founder of Civic Anchor, an executive advisory firm focused on building crisis leadership, consequence management, and operational resilience for critical infrastructure and mission-driven organizations critical to national security. 

Prior to entering the private sector, Kristen spent more than a decade in federal service,  serving as founding Executive Director of the Vanguard Executive Crisis Leaders Program, Senior Advisor to the FEMA Deputy Administrator, Chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s Exercise & Evaluation Program, and as a member of National-IMAT Team Gold. Throughout her federal career, she supported numerous national disaster response operations, including Hurricanes Helene, Maria, Sandy, and the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier, Kristen served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security, where she worked on implementation of the President’s 2014 Executive Order on Immigration. Prior to that, she was a policy advisor and speechwriter for the Director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). During her tenure at DIA, she helped implement the Director’s strategic priorities and co-led the agency’s strategic plan addressing workplace culture and workforce engagement.

Before entering federal service, Kristen studied speechwriting at Oxford University under Emeritus Fellow Dr. G.H.L. LeMay. She is a graduate of the Senior Executive Service (SES) Candidate Development Program and a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) alumna. Kristen holds a Master of Arts in National Security and Intelligence Studies from the Institute of World Politics and a B.A. in Political Science from the State University of New York at Fredonia.