A former UK Government cyber leader and Financial Times cyber chief, Dr. Ahana Datta Fasel advises global governments and industry on geopolitical, AI and systemic risk strategies.
She serves as non-executive director at a leading global digital rights charity, adviser to deep tech start-ups, and a strategic adviser on national security and resilience to the UK body for research, innovation and international partnerships. A prolific speaker and writer, she has held fellowships at Cornell, Cambridge, Imperial and Durham, with radio appearances on the BBC, Monocle, and Times Radio.
Her book, Full Stack Spies: Cyber Espionage in the Age of US–China Competition (C Hurst & Co, 11 June 2026 UK and Oxford University Press, 1 October 2026 US), traces the shift from the tactical ‘hack’ to the structural ‘stack’, showing how cyber espionage became an instrument of statecraft in today's great power competition — and why trust is now the decisive strategic asset in an unstable world order.
Events
Book event: Full Stack Spies — Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University · 9 October 2026 · 12-2pm (EST)
How China’s Cyber Operations Foreshadowed its Statecraft — China Week, Lau China Institute, King's College London · 20 October 2026 · 10am
In the Media
- Financial Times Cyber war won’t be the same in the age of AI
- SpyCraft101 podcast ep268 China's Cyber Spies (also on Spotify and Audible)
- Rapporteur Hybrid Threats and EU Tech Sovereignty
- SpyCast On YouTube, Apple, Spotify
- Secrets and Spies podcast On YouTube, Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music
- Rapporteur On Europe's digital sovereignty
- Foreign Policy US Cyber Strategy and Beijing dynamics
- Rapporteur Iran-China intelligence relationship
- Financial Times Huawei and the dilemmas of the surveillance age
- Columbia Journalism Review Governments of the world just ramped up spying on reporters
- OneTeamGov Podcast Cybersecurity and the Civil Service
- Plutopia Podcast The Security-Insecurity Paradox