Brian O’Keefe serves as the Executive Vice President for Data Operations at Babel Street, a world leading provider of threat intelligence, data collection and analytics. Prior to Babel Street, Brian served as President and CEO of Vertical Knowledge, a competitive data intelligence and PAI collection provider. Babel Street acquired Vertical Knowledge in January 2024. A retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major, Brian has more than 20 years of intelligence analysis experience supporting military and interagency operations and activities. Prior to coming to Vertical Knowledge, Brian and his teams depended on the accurate, curated publicly available information supplied by the public data industry, which informed discovery and analysis of alternative data from multiple countries in multiple languages.

Brian is an expert at applying alternative data solutions to the toughest problems facing clients in Washington and on Wall Street by finding the story beneath the story. Discovery and expert analysis of alternative data provides insight and understanding that conventional data cannot. Leveraging this power, Brian and Vertical Knowledge help government agencies find and understand the critical data they need to meet national security objectives, and that companies need to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. He is an accomplished commentator on explaining the role of alternative data in geopolitics and identifying economic intelligence that cannot be seen using conventional data.

Brian’s decorated military service includes analysis across counterinsurgency, national special security events, counterterrorism, and counterproliferation mission areas, as well as collection management, effects-based targeting, intelligence systems capability development and integration, and interagency and international partner liaison activities.