Director Christopher Wray has named Kurt Ronnow as the special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division at the Washington Field Office. Mr. Ronnow most recently served as a deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Ronnow joined the FBI as a special agent in 2002 and was assigned to the Salem Resident Agency, a satellite of the Portland Field Office in Oregon. During his time in Salem, Mr. Ronnow worked primarily on a case related to Eurasian organized crime and foreign intelligence. He also served on the SWAT team.
In 2012, Mr. Ronnow traveled to Islamabad to serve as assistant legal attaché. He also worked out of the FBI's office in Karachi, Pakistan. He returned to the U.S. in 2014 as a supervisory special agent in the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters and served as the program manager of the Philadelphia Field Office's international terrorism program.
Mr. Ronnow also helped establish the Syria-Iraq Task Force to disrupt extremists who wanted to travel to the area. He later supervised the start-up of an interagency operation that targeted foreign fighters drawn to the foreign terrorist organization ISIL. In 2014, Mr. Ronnow became the first FBI senior advisor to the U.S. military's Special Operations Command Central in Doha, Qatar. In 2015, Mr. Ronnow became the first chief of the Extraterritorial Hostage Unit at FBI Headquarters and then served as a senior leader in the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell.
In 2017, Mr. Ronnow transferred to the Tacoma Resident Agency under the Seattle Field Office as a field supervisor. In 2018, he transferred to the Washington Field Office as the assistant special agent in charge of an intelligence branch.
Mr. Ronnow was promoted in 2020 to section chief of the Surveillance and Aviation Section in the Critical Incident Response Group at Headquarters. In 2021, he was named deputy assistant director of the Counterintelligence Division at Headquarters, over the Russia/Global Branch.
Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Ronnow was an attorney. He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and business administration from George Fox College in Oregon, and a law degree from Willamette University, also in Oregon.
