Lieutenant General Douglas “D.A.” Sims II is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is the senior vice president and chief risk officer at Iron Mountain, where he oversees enterprise risk management, cybersecurity, investigations, insurance, safety, security, resilience, and governance across the company’s global operations.
He previously served for more than three decades in the US Army, culminating in assignments as director of the Joint Staff and director for operations of the Joint Staff. In these roles, he advised the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior national security leaders, coordinated global military operations and crisis response, and led the integration of planning, policy, intelligence, operations, and logistics across the military services, combatant commands, and interagency. He also helped establish artificial intelligence applications and policies to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Joint Staff and Department of Defense.
Previously, Sims served as commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley, where he led more than sixteen thousand soldiers and civilians and oversaw training, modernization, global deployments, installation management, and military-community engagement. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy and a master’s degree from Webster University. He was also a national defense fellow in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.