# Sue Gordon **Entity class:** Person; intelligence practitioner and technology-modernization leader ## Definition **Susan M. “Sue” Gordon** is a former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence whose career included senior roles at the CIA and service as Deputy Director of the [[wiki/National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency|National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]]. Her public record emphasizes intelligence integration, partnerships, agile decision-making, geospatial capability, modernization of the information environment, and the connection between government missions and rapidly evolving commercial technology. While at CIA she helped design and establish [[wiki/In-Q-Tel|In-Q-Tel]]. ## Why This Person Is Included Gordon embodies the collection's view of the [[wiki/Intelligence Community|Intelligence Community]] as an adaptive technological ecosystem and a protective national capability. Bryant McGill includes her because her career connects integration, geospatial intelligence, industry partnerships, institutional modernization, and operational decision advantage. The overlap is documented in systems modernization and intelligence integration; it is not a claim that Gordon endorses Bryant's larger synthesis. ## Relationships - **leadership:** [[wiki/Office of the Director of National Intelligence|ODNI]], [[wiki/National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency|NGA]], and [[wiki/Geospatial Intelligence|Geospatial Intelligence]]. - **modernization:** [[wiki/Intelligence Integration|Intelligence Integration]], [[wiki/In-Q-Tel|In-Q-Tel]], [[wiki/Commercial Technology and Intelligence|Commercial Technology and Intelligence]], and [[wiki/Public-Private Intelligence Ecosystem|Public-Private Intelligence Ecosystem]]. - **collection role:** practitioner neighbor in [[wiki/Intellectual Neighborhood of the Counterterrorism Collection|Intellectual Neighborhood of the Counterterrorism Collection]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, nomination hearing for Susan Gordon, July 19, 2017](https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2017/07/14/hearings-open-hearing-nomination-susan-gordon-robert-storch-and-isabel-patelunas/). - [Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Sue Gordon, PDDNI, Inducted Into 2019 Wash100,” February 14, 2019](https://www.dni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/leadership/deputy-director-of-national-intelligence/372-newsroom/news-articles/3302-sue-gordon-pddni-inducted-into-2019-wash100-for-leading-odni-s-modernization-efforts?tmpl=component). **As of:** 2026-09-23