Rudolph Atallah
Rudolph Atallah is Chief Executive Officer of White Mountain Research Inc., a service-disabled veteran-owned company he founded 17 years ago to operate at the intersection of geopolitics, counterterrorism, and high-risk environments. Under his leadership, the firm has supported governments, multinational companies, and humanitarian organizations operating in some of the world’s most complex and dangerous regions.
Atallah brings 34 years of experience in U.S. national security at the highest levels of government, most recently as Deputy Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the White House National Security Council. In that role, he led U.S. counterterrorism policy across Africa and the Levant, coordinating diplomacy, defense, intelligence, and financial tools to protect U.S. interests and prevent regional destabilization.
A retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, Defense Attaché, and senior Pentagon official, Atallah served as Africa Counterterrorism Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and advised two U.S. Secretaries of Defense, members of Congress, and foreign heads of state. He has led crisis response, hostage recovery, mass evacuations, and humanitarian protection efforts worldwide, including the 2002 evacuation of more than 1,700 American citizens from Ivory Coast during a coup and civil war, and support to the resolution of the 2009 Maersk Alabama hostage crisis, for which he received the Defense Meritorious Service Medal among more than 25 military honors.
His humanitarian work spans some of the most dangerous theaters of the past two decades. Atallah and his teams have relocated and supported more than 179,759 Christians and Yazidis displaced by conflict, rescued 645 victims from ISIS- and al-Qaeda-controlled territory, and funded and rebuilt more than 250 Christian homes. In 2021, during the fall of Kabul, he and his team rescued and relocated over 9,500 Afghans and brought 1,273 Americans out from under Taliban control, resettling refugees in Canada, Australia, Brazil, the Gulf, and the United States.
A native of Beirut fluent in Arabic and French, Atallah has traveled to more than 125 countries. He served as a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council for twelve years and holds a B.S. in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and a Master’s in International Relations from Troy University. He is recognized internationally for delivering results where security, diplomacy, and business converge, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states.