Sidney Olinyk is the Founder & CEO of Duco, a global, on-demand marketplace reinventing the way enterprises connect with high-end consultants to collect geopolitical, security, and international business insights.  Sidney’s career spans national security, technology, and organizational management – from the Pentagon to civil society to the startup world in Silicon Valley.  She has extensive experience managing people, processes, and operations in multiple organizations in the private and public sectors.

Sidney is a former Obama Administration political appointee and served as the Chief of Staff for Middle East Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  In this capacity, Sidney managed interagency coordination and advised multiple officials in developing strategy, identifying priorities, and implementing organizational change.

Prior to serving at the DoD, Sidney was the Director of Leadership Development at the Truman National Security Project and is currently a National Security Fellow.  Sidney has also served as a Vice President at Sayara International, an international development organization focused on the Middle East and Afghanistan, and as an executive at Measure, the leading Drone as a Service company.

Sidney is a Governing Board member at the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, a London-based think tank, and Board of Advisors member at Indispensable US, a non-profit dedicated to promoting free elections and women’s rights, among other issues.  Sidney holds a M.Sc. in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a dual B.A. in International Studies and Media & Government Studies from American University in Washington, D.C.