Executive Assistant Director, Intelligence Branch

Ryan T. Young was named the executive assistant director of the FBI's Intelligence Branch in December 2021. Mr. Young had most recently served as the assistant director of the Directorate of Intelligence.

Mr. Young joined the FBI as a special agent in 2001 and worked counterintelligence cases in the Miami Field Office. In 2007, he was promoted to supervise the Cuban Counterintelligence Squad.

In 2012, Mr. Young was named chief of internal policy in the Resources Planning Office at Headquarters. He moved to the Counterterrorism Division in 2014 and established the Syria-Iraq Task Force. He also led a 72-member interagency task force to counter the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. In 2015, Mr. Young was named the assistant special agent in charge of the Intelligence Branch in the Dallas Field Office, where he also led administrative functions. 

Mr. Young was promoted in 2016 to section chief for the Directorate of Intelligence’s Strategic Technology Section and was responsible for providing enterprise technology to operational entities addressing the FBI most challenging threats.

Mr. Young was promoted to special agent in charge of the Counterterrorism Division of the Los Angeles Field Office in 2018. He led the FBI’s second largest Joint Terrorism Task Force and weapons of mass destruction investigations in the Los Angeles region and in Southeast Asia. He was also responsible for all crisis management and response assets, including the SWAT Team, the Evidence Response Team, bomb technicians, and other programs.

He was appointed assistant director of the Directorate of Intelligence at Headquarters in 2020.

Mr. Young earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in criminal administration and counseling from Western Oregon State University. Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Young was an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He earned an FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Counterintelligence Investigation in 2010 for his work on a Cuba case.