James B. Skinner is the Vice President at American Global Strategies. Prior to serving as Vice President, Mr. Skinner was Chief of Staff at the firm where he provided support to the firm’s leadership and day-to-day execution of key operations.
Before joining American Global Strategies, Mr. Skinner served as Special Assistant to United States National Security Advisor, Ambassador Robert C. O’Brien. In this capacity, Mr. Skinner ensured O’Brien’s preparedness for daily engagements with domestic and foreign counterparts, including providing direct operational and logistic support on Presidential Missions to the Middle East, Asia, Europe, South America, the Indo-Pacific, and across the United States.
Mr. Skinner worked closely with the White House Situation Room to review and prioritize national security documents, intelligence reports, and other sensitive communications to manage the flow of information to the National Security Advisor, Deputy National Security Advisor, and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council.
Prior to joining the National Security Council, Mr. Skinner served at the United States Department of Defense as Policy Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics & Global Threats. His role focused on counter threat finance and transnational organized crime across the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa. He oversaw issues of human, narcotics, and weapons trafficking, along with money laundering and intellectual property theft across those key regions.
During this time, Mr. Skinner was concurrently appointed to the Counterterrorism Interagency Finance Cell and Iran Finance Fusion Cell at the Pentagon.
Earlier, Mr. Skinner held positions at the Department of Defense as an Advisor and Portfolio Manager in the White House Liaison Office, managing the personnel and hiring decisions of eight organizations consisting of over 150 professionals. Prior to this role, he served as a Defense Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Skinner holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, cum laude, from the University of Missouri.