Mr. Owen West is the Director of the Defense Innovation Unit. He is the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations. Previously, Mr. West worked for Goldman, Sachs as the trading partner-in-charge the global natural gas and U.S. power businesses. While at Goldman, Mr. West took two leaves of absence to activate and deploy with fellow Marines to Iraq.

He is the author of three books about military affairs. Sharkman Six (Simon and Schuster, 2001) won the Boyd literary award for best military novel. The Snake Eaters (Simon and Schuster, 2012) detailed the combat advisory mission in Iraq. He has written dozens of articles and op-eds on the military and adventure sports.

Mr. West graduated from Harvard College, served for 6 years as a Marine platoon commander and a reconnaissance platoon commander, then graduated Stanford Business School.