National Security Consulting

Strategy forged
from 50 years
of experience.

Farafield Strategies brings hard-won expertise from the National Security Council, Department of State, USAID, the United Nations, and NGOs worldwide — to help organizations plan with clarity and lead with purpose.

Our Services Get in Touch
Far•A•Field Strategies

Who We Are

Clarity at the
intersection of strategy
and execution.

Farafield Strategies LLC is a national security consulting firm built on five decades of combined experience at the highest levels of U.S. government. We work with organizations navigating complex environments — advising on how to plan strategically, design effective operations, and build the institutional capacity to sustain results.

Our principals have worked across the National Security Council, Department of State, USAID, the United Nations, international organizations, and NGOs — leading teams, driving reform, and translating policy into action in some of the world's most demanding environments.

50+
Years Combined Experience
3
Core Practice Areas
UN
+ NGO Experience

What We Do

Three practice areas.
One integrated approach.

01

Strategic Planning

We help organizations cut through complexity and build strategies that hold up under pressure. Drawing on deep interagency and international experience, we design planning processes that align stakeholders, surface real risks, and produce actionable roadmaps — not shelf documents.

02

Operational Design

Strategy without operational coherence fails in execution. We work with senior leadership to design initiatives that translate intent into coordinated action — clarifying roles, sequencing decisions, and building the connective tissue between policy and implementation.

03

Organizational Learning

Organizations that learn outperform those that merely execute. We advise on how to build cultures and systems that capture lessons, develop leadership, and sustain reform — drawing on decades of experience training civil servants and designing change management programs at scale.

Cross Cutting

Managing AI Strategy & Organizational Adoption

Helping leaders identify high-value AI use cases, establish governance frameworks, redesign workflows, and build the organizational capabilities needed to deploy AI responsibly and effectively.

Our Team

Practitioners, not theorists.

Jason Ladnier

Jason Ladnier

Co-Founder

Jason is a senior national security strategist with 25+ years of experience improving how the U.S. government plans and implements initiatives that protect Americans and advance stability worldwide. He brings proven expertise in integrating diplomatic, military, economic, and intelligence tools across multiple agencies — and has trained and mentored hundreds of civil servants while teaching the next generation of public servants at the graduate level.

Jason has a demonstrated ability to mobilize coalitions, drive bureaucratic reform, and translate complex international affairs into compelling public narratives.

Ciara Knudsen

Ciara Knudsen

Co-Founder

Ciara is a strategic leader with 25+ years of experience in executive decision support, leadership development, and crisis management at the National Security Council, Department of State, USAID, and international organizations. She has a proven track record of building teams, coordinating complex initiatives, and solving challenging problems across U.S. government agencies, international organizations, and NGOs at home and abroad.

Ciara is an expert in supporting Principal-level leadership in high-stakes decision-making, policy design, and risk management — and in standing up new capabilities that endure.

Get in Touch

Let's work
together.

Whether you're navigating a strategic inflection point, building organizational capacity, or designing a complex initiative — we'd like to hear from you.

jladnier@farafieldstrategies.com cknudsen@farafieldstrategies.com