Russ Berkoff

A proven leader, manager, and strategist, Berkoff has worked extensively within government and commercial sectors in the US defense, civilian agency, intelligence community, and technology commercial sectors. He is currently a Director for Growth and Strategy in the Defense and Security Segment at Guidehouse Inc. and serves as a Strategic Advisor to StealthPath Inc. – having led the cybersecurity start-up for four years and taking it from developmental to a commercial company. 

Berkoff has underscored his career in transformational activities whether consulting for Kearney and PricewaterhouseCoopers for Fortune 500 clients or leading the strategic forecasting office at the National Security Agency (NSA) – After 9/11 Berkoff was recruited into NSA, working as a chief strategist providing strategic planning and forecasting to the inter-service intelligence agencies, the Global War on Terrorism Strategy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and coordinating NSA efforts with the Director of National Intelligence and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. Through this he gained deep insights into solving complex organizational challenges on corporate management, integration and alignment. Berkoff has worked extensively with strategic forecasting scenarios and war gaming to support new organizational direction, this included working with Royal Dutch Shell’s methodology in London, and other western intelligence services.

Along these same transformational lines, Berkoff became a leader in the high-technology space serving in roles as CEO of the PTR Group… an advanced technology engineering services company, and at Dell Computers where he led the executive business strategy, solutioning, and capture to win a $383M USSOCOM Specialty Services Program competition.

Berkoff is a retired military officer beginning his career in the United States Army Special Forces (Green Berets) where he led 13 foreign deployments working with 9 different U.S. Embassies and foreign governments and worked at all levels of command and staff within the Army.

He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, holds Master’s Degrees from Loyola University Maryland, Sellinger School of Business in Finance, and the Naval Postgraduate School in Defense Analysis. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.. Berkoff is well traveled, living in both Europe and Japan, with business trips throughout Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Europe. He currently resides in Maryland.

Education History

• B.S., Engineering, United States Military Academy
• M.S., Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School
• M.S., Finance, Loyola University Maryland

Work Experience

Customer Relationship Executive, Guidehouse Inc.

Publications

Author, “Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Policy Decision-Making”, published: ISBN-10: 142356488X

With the advent of a global information society, the US will seek to tap the potential of advanced computing capability to enhance its ability to conduct foreign policy decision making. This thesis explores the potential for improving individual and organizational decision making capabilities by means of artificial intelligence (AI). The use of AI will allow us to take advantage of the plethora of information available to obtain an edge over potential adversaries. Another purpose of this thesis is to give guidance to the software community as to what policymakers will need in order to improve future decision making processes. The third purpose is to encourage government and private sector decision makers to allocate adequate resources to actualize the potential of AI. The method of analysis this thesis uses is to examine US foreign policy decision making on the cognitive or individual, group, and organizational levels. Using the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur War as test beds for critical analysis, identification of both decision enhancing and impeding functions is accomplished. Finally, a counterfactual analytic framework, using an AI model, tests the likely influence of AI on decision making. The results substantiate the value of AI as both a decision making enhancer and an impediment reducer for the policymaker. Additional conclusions are derived that improve the decision making system and its processes by means of introducing an AI capability.