Melissa B. Mahle

Melissa Mahle is a senior advisor in Steptoe's International Trade & Regulatory Compliance Group. Melissa is a risk professional with public and private sector experience in intelligence collection and analysis, risk management and investigations. Using skills, experience and contacts developed in her career as a US intelligence officer, she advises clients on political and security risks, crisis management, incident response, after-action reviews and business continuity.

Melissa conducts due diligence and compliance investigations and provides bespoke threat analysis, security briefings and scenario development for tabletop and other training exercises. She also advises clients on best practices and formulation of company security policies tailored to the client’s operational environment and corporate culture.

With a professional background in intelligence, foreign policy advising and risk consulting, Melissa has the diverse experience needed to help clients solve problems in the rapidly changing, complex and increasingly risky global environment. Her professional experience as a former US intelligence officer has afforded her with two decades of on-the-ground knowledge of the Middle East and global national security challenges, which she now leverages to provide informed analysis of key regional and global developments to clients in private industry and foreign governments.

Melissa has published papers in Arab and US policy journals and speaks publicly on national security, energy security and political risk. She is the author of Denial and Deception: An Insider's View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11 (Nation Books, 2003) and, on the lighter side, she has authored children's books and served as a Hollywood film consultant.