Tesari
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October 7 2026
National security leaders back human-led Super Intelligence (SI) in sensitive environments
Experienced practitioners from national security, finance and technology are coming together to support Tesari, a super intelligence developer, to address increasingly interconnected security challenges.
Houston – October 7, 2026.
The strategic threats that countries and multilateral organizations face increasingly cut across traditional intelligence, law enforcement, financial, trade, technology and industry lanes. Additionally, the global threat landscape is changing faster than static controls can.
To respond to the changing threat environment, Tesari formed the new National Security & Strategic Threat Council. Its members are a network of experts built around transnational intelligence for complex risk. Practitioners from different fields see diverse parts of the same problem. Council members operate at the intersection of national security, investigations, government, technology, financial risk, and international affairs. They converge around a common operational problem: finding reliable intelligence in fragmented, international, difficult-to-search information environments and turning it into a defensible decision. The most compelling aspect of this Council is not simply that these individuals have impressive résumés. It’s that each member has actually performed the work Tesari does at scale. They trust Tesari because they’ve witnessed first-hand both human investigations and Tesari’s SI capacity.
Tesari’s National Security & Strategic Threat Council is built around a practical question: how can governments and organizations respond when technology, trade, finance, supply chains, and national security threats are moving faster and becoming more interconnected? Tesari believes technology can dramatically expand the speed, reach, and depth of an investigation, but it does not replace experienced judgment. That human-at-the-helm principle is central both to the platform and to the Council itself.
“The problems Tesari aims to solve are concrete, and the people supporting us in shaping this sensitive technology bring high-stakes, hands-on experience. We sought a council who have actually done the work- leaders who have shaped industry standards, global policy, national security strategies, and compliance at some of the world’s most influential organizations. We are proud to be trusted by these industry titans and to have their experience and judgment helping shape what Tesari will build next.” says Elisar Nurmagambet, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesari.
According to Brian Andersen, Tesari’s VP of National Security Applications and Chair of the National Security and Strategic Threat Council, “I learned over more than two decades in national security investigations that the visible event is rarely the whole problem. Behind the attack were financiers and facilitators. Behind the shell company was a nation-state. Behind the transshipment route was a sanctions-evasion network. I saw that in Rwanda, Boston, France, Germany, and across cases involving criminal, terrorist, and nation-state networks around the world. Each Council member brings deep experience like mine to the table. My role as Chair is to garner different perspectives from the Council, set the direction, and keep us focused on one objective: identifying the threat, relationship, or vulnerability that others have not predicted or cannot yet see.”
Introducing the Tesari National Security & Strategic Threat Council Members
Brian Andersen, VP, National Security Applications at Tesari and Chair of the National Security and Strategic Threat Council, is a retired Homeland Security Investigations Supervisory Special Agent with more than 20 years of federal national security experience. He led HSI’s Government Supply Chain Investigations Unit and previously worked undercover counterproliferation investigations targeting illicit procurement of controlled U.S. technology. He brings deep experience in export controls, sanctions, cross-border investigations, supply chain security, and procurement integrity to the Council.
Alma Angotti has 30 years of senior enforcement experience including roles at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”). Alma brings significant experience in financial crime, compliance, risk assessment, and global fintech to the Council.
Jeff Rittener was Chief Trade Officer at Intel Corporation for 34 years and currently serves on the Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee at the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, where he advises on the implementation of U.S. export controls - the same regulations now being passed through to the private sector.
Joe Zacks is a former Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism and former Chief Learning Officer at the CIA. He was awarded the Army's Legion of Merit and the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal and Director’s Medal. Joe is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Joe brings deep expertise on national security and provides strategic guidance on how global threats can shape the future.
Zaid A. Zaid served as Special Assistant to President Obama and Associate White House Counsel, advising senior Executive Branch officials on national security matters, congressional oversight, and regulatory compliance. Zaid brings decades of work at the intersection of law, technology policy, diplomacy, and public-private sector engagement to the Council.
Stacia Hylton serves on the Board of Directors of LexisNexis Special Services and CoreCivic. She is a former Director of the U.S. Marshals Service and presidential appointee. Stacia won the U.S. President’s Distinguished Service Award and the Attorney General’s Edmund J. Randolph Award for Distinguished Service. She brings experience leading complex investigative, protective, and emergency response operations, digital intelligence, forensics, cybersecurity, and national security mission support to the Council.
Amy McFadden serves as Senior Vice President and Head of Arcanum’s Strategic Intelligence Group. She brings more than 25 years of senior leadership experience at the CIA, ODNI, as Vice Chair for Strategic Engagement at the National Intelligence Council, former Associate Deputy Director for Analysis at the CIA, and Director of the President’s Daily Brief. She brings expertise in intelligence reporting and oversight.
Mark Demers served nearly 30 years with the National Counterterrorism Center at ODNI, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the FBI, and the Department of Justice - the four federal agencies whose mandates most directly shape the new private-sector national security obligations.
Michael S. Fleming is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Director of the International Technology Center - Mediterranean at U.S. Army DEVCOM. He brings more than 30 years of practical experience in defense innovation and dual-use technology development to the Council.
Douglas Gilmer, PhD retired from Homeland Security Investigations after 25 years of federal service, most recently as Senior Law Enforcement Advisor at the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking and previously as Chief of HSI's Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center. He was awarded the National Intelligence Medal for Intelligence Integration by the Director of National Intelligence.
Karanai Ravenscroft is the Co-Founder and COO of Sovereign Bank International headquartered in the federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. She is a proud member of the Osage and Cherokee Nations, deeply committed to enriching tribal and indigenous communities. Karanai’s expertise in financial operations, regional development, global finance, wealth management, agile banking services, compliance-driven reg-tech platforms, and machine learning tools will support the Council.
David Niccolini is an entrepreneur and investor in the enterprise security risk management (ESRM) space with almost 30 years of professional experience spanning six continents. His work includes security and logistics at the 2016 Rio Games, fraud investigations around the Deepwater Horizon Fund, and the protection of a 2020 U.S. Presidential Primary campaign. David is also a passionate advocate fighting human trafficking and exploitation around the globe through venture backed, for-profit models.
Paul Wright has spent 40 years in investigations spanning law enforcement, digital forensics, intelligence, and the private sector. Paul has held senior leadership roles, including Associate Director at Deloitte and KPMG, Technical Director at Intel Security, and Co-Founder of the Coalition of Cyber Investigators. As a leading advocate for “Human-at-the-Helm” intelligence, Paul will contribute significantly to the Council.
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About Tesari
Tesari AI, a transnational risk intelligence platform, is an autonomous AI platform that combines proprietary data access across the world's most challenging regions, encoded exclusive AI skills, workflows contributed by domain experts, and all-source analysis through hundreds of integrated tools. It is managed end-to-end by an agentic AI system to deliver expert-grade outcomes in minutes. Tesari is advised by industry experts and senior executives from the Department of Justice, the SEC, LexisNexis, Meta, Deutsche Bank, and the CIA, who bring decades of experience to address national security challenges and transnational policy. For more information visit www.tesari.ai.
