Sean Roche

Sean Roche serves as Senior Advisor for Diligence and Operations at Helena. Prior to Helena, Sean was the Associate Deputy Director of CIA for Digital Innovation serving as the second-in-command of CIA’s first new directorate in more than 50 years.

The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) was created to accelerate the integration of advanced digital capability across all of CIA’s mission areas and is responsible for a wide range of espionage missions including cyber intelligence, open source collection, secure global communications, worldwide mission information systems, data curation, and data science. He successfully executed programs totaling more than $3B while overhauling the legacy personnel systems and practices to create CIA’s first digital workforce.

Prior to this position, he served as the Deputy Director of CIA for Science and Technology where he held senior executive roles across a wide range of missions, technical disciplines, and tradecraft, ranging from research and development to clandestine operations.

He led teams that developed, delivered, and deployed satellite and airborne reconnaissance systems, next generation collection platforms, clandestine technical collection systems, and advanced targeting tools and methodologies. His direct, actionable contributions to high profile counterterrorism interdiction efforts were personally recognized by multiple Presidents, Congress and foreign heads of state.

Mr. Roche also held senior positions across the IC and the Department of Defense. During his career at CIA he also served concurrently in the US Air Force Reserve, retiring in the rank of Colonel after 25 years of continuous service.

He has been the recipient of multiple Presidential, IC, CIA and DOD individual and unit awards, decorations and citations. He was recognized with CIA’s highest award for leading and advancing a diverse and inclusive workforce. He resides in California with his family.