Frances Townsend

Frances M. "Fran" Fragos Townsend (born December 28, 1961) is an American lawyer and business executive who served as Homeland Security Advisor to United States President George W. Bush from 2004 to 2007, and was formerly the executive vice president for corporate affairs, corporate secretary, and compliance chief officer for Activision Blizzard, until September 2022, due to Microsoft acquiring Blizzard for $75 billion. She previously served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism. In 2008, Townsend joined CNN as a contributor, but later switched over to CBS where she is a national security analyst for them. Townsend was president of the Counter Extremism Project.

Early life, education, and family

Frances Mary Fragos was born on December 28, 1961, in Mineola, New York, the daughter of John Fragos, a Greek American roofer, and Dorothy Townsend, an Irish American office manager for a construction company. Raised in Wantagh, Long Island, Townsend was the first in her family to finish high school. At the age of 11, she penned letters requesting that she be allowed to be an altar boy, first to her priest, then to the bishop, the cardinal, and ultimately to the Vatican. After her requests were refused, her priest caught her trying to sneak into Mass with a borrowed robe.

Townsend graduated ''cum laude'' from the American University in 1982, receiving a B.A. in political science and a B.S. in psychology. She received her J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1984.

Frances Fragos married lawyer John Michael Townsend on October 8, 1994, in an Episcopal ceremony at Manhattan's Church of the Incarnation. As of 2006, they have two children, both sons. With a self-professed "triple type-A" personality, Townsend has been described as having a characteristic bluntness and a "sometimes salty, streetwise style" that once led her coworkers to nickname her "The Hurricane".

Career

Government

Townsend began her prosecutorial career in 1985, serving as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York. She gained the support and mentorship of federal prosecutors Rudolph Giuliani and Louis Freeh. In 1988, she was hired by Giuliani for the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York where she worked on white-collar crime. Townsend also ran the office's organized crime unit, where she conducted one-on-one interviews with members of the Gambino crime family.

Townsend moved to the Justice Department in the early 1990s to work on international legal matters. In 1991, she worked in the Office of the Attorney General to assist in establishing the newly created Office of International Programs, the predecessor to the Executive Office for National Security. In December 1993, she joined the Criminal Division where she served as Chief of Staff to the Assistant Attorney General, where she took part in establishing the Division's international training and rule of law programs.

During the Clinton administration, Townsend served in a series of positions at the Justice Department, eventually working as intelligence policy counsel for Attorney General Janet Reno. She served as Director of the Office of International Affairs in the Criminal Division from November 1995 until November 1997, when she was appointed Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Townsend was appointed Counsel for Intelligence Policy in March 1998, heading the office of Intelligence Policy and Review, whose various functions included approving intelligence-gathering activities related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

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