Ken Pope

Ken Pope is CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Previously he had a 34 year career in the U.S. Army, consulting industry and academia. While in uniform, he served in a variety of Armored Reconnaissance, Special Operations and Russian Foreign Area Officer (FAO) assignments in Europe, the Middle East, and Central America. He commanded an Armored Cavalry Troop during the Persian Gulf War and a Special Operations unit focused on Central America. Ken had over 12 years of operational fieldwork as an Army FAO with a focus on Russia and the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and security issues with a variety of assignments in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kosovo. In the consulting industry, he led teams that provided strategy, planning, analysis and wargaming support to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, and Combatant Commands. Ken also served as an Assistant Professor at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi where he taught courses on intelligence, advanced analytics, senior capstone program and led the center’s national security simulations. He has a B.A. in Sociology, a M.A. in International Relations and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and Staff College and the George C. Marshall Center’s Executive Program for Advanced Security Studies. He speaks Russian.