- Two decades disrupting terrorist plots, from Guantanamo Bay prosecutions to a Home-Depot bomb sting
- Oversees FBI counterterrorism, HUMINT and threat-mitigation strategy nationwide
- Set to unpack AI’s growing footprint in bureau operations at 2026 Intel Summit
Matthew Fodor, operations director for the FBI’s National Security Branch, will deliver a keynote address at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Intel Summit on Sept. 24 at the Falls Church Marriott Fairview Park in northern Virginia.
Potomac Officers Club is the nation’s leading GovCon events and networking organization and it has gathered all of the top minds and decision-makers in federal intelligence for its 2026 Intel Summit, the latest edition of its long-running annual IC series. If you want to partner with the FBI, CIA, NGA, NRO and more, this is the event for you. Register now!
Who Is Matt Fodor?
Few speakers on this year’s Intel Summit roster have moved through as many layers of the counterterrorism mission as Fodor, whose two decades of frontline investigations, program oversight and executive command make him one of the summit’s most operationally grounded voices. His FBI career, which began in 2006, has run almost entirely through counterterrorism — first tracking international terrorism threats out of the Washington Field Office, then widening into program management, field leadership and now branch-level strategy at headquarters.
Field and program leadership highlights:
- Investigated 9/11-related war crimes cases as part of a joint duty assignment with the Guantanamo Bay Prosecution Task Force, working alongside Department of War investigators and prosecutors
- Oversaw international terrorism investigations spanning seven FBI field offices as a supervisory special agent
- Ran a Joint Terrorism Task Force squad in Phoenix dedicated to disrupting homegrown violent extremism
- Coordinated the extradition of multiple U.S. persons captured providing material support to ISIS while managing extraterritorial investigations across Europe, the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant
Executive-level roles:
- Led criminal, counterintelligence and cyber programs, plus crisis management operations, as assistant special agent in charge in FBI Miami
- Directed the bureau’s Counterterrorism Human Intelligence Section, managing both HUMINT and online undercover programs
- Served as deputy assistant director for domestic terrorism operations, private sector outreach and technical innovation within the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters
- Most recently commanded the FBI’s Tampa Field Office, where he expanded regional threat-management capacity and prioritized violent crime, crimes against children and elder fraud, according to WINK News.
Before all of those accomplishments, Fodor worked as a Denver police officer and financial crimes investigator, chasing fraud and money laundering cases for a financial institution — groundwork that still shows up in how he talks about layered, whole-of-government threat response.
What Will Fodor Discuss at the Intel Summit?
With an active NY Capitol bomb plot disruption behind him and branch-wide oversight of the bureau’s counterterrorism strategy, Fodor is positioned to deliver one of the 2026 Intel Summit‘s more consequential sessions on where the domestic threat picture is headed. Topics may include:
- A live case study in disruption: Fodor’s branch was credited with stopping an alleged plot to bomb the New York State Capitol and kill elected officials, a case that turned on undercover HUMINT work and a Home Depot sting for bomb-making materials
- Domestic and international terrorism trends, shaped by his run through nearly every corner of the bureau’s counterterrorism apparatus
- Cross-agency and public-private collaboration, a theme he’s stressed in prior remarks on partnerships across the Defense Intelligence Enterprise
- AI and emerging technology’s role in threat mitigation, tying into the summit’s broader agentic AI focus
“The FBI detected and stopped an alleged plot to attack the New York State Capitol and kill elected officials,” Fodor said in a statement, reported by Time Magazine.
“This case is yet another example of how this FBI is built to not only identify threats of terrorism quickly, but to stop their alleged plots before they are able to harm the American people,” he added.
Why Attend the 2026 Intel Summit?
GovCons serving the intelligence community will hear from Fodor at the 2026 Intel Summit alongside keynote speakers from the CIA, NSA, DHS, NRO, U.S. Space Force and DEA, plus panels on agentic AI adoption, OSINT, cybersecurity and quantum risk in classified environments. Fodor’s remarks ground those technology conversations in the operational reality of counterterrorism, offering contractors a read on where FBI mission priorities and partnership opportunities are headed.
It isn’t often that intelligence community leaders get this candid and share their priorities and mission statements this transparently. You want to be in this room—save your spot today.
