Christina Hillsberg

Christina Hillsberg is a former CIA intelligence officer, writer, recognized expert on women in espionage and author of "Agents of Change: The Women Who Transformed the CIA" (June 2025). The recipient of multiple CIA Exceptional Performance Awards, her work at the CIA included specializing in African politics and leaders as one of the Intelligence Community’s few Swahili and Zulu linguists, producing analytic assessments for senior-level policymakers including the President and his Cabinet, and serving in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, clandestinely collecting intelligence from the field. After leaving the CIA, Christina worked in Information Security at Amazon, where she stood up the company’s first Insider Threat program, created a new global framework to analyze cyber risks, and established new processes to utilize intelligence tradecraft to analyze information security threats. She now writes full-time and is the author of "License to Parent: How My Career as a Spy Helped Me Raise Resourceful, Self-Sufficient Kids." Her writing has been featured in The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, Harvard Business Review, Parents Magazine, Thrive Global, Parade, and more.