Vanessa Ganley is Assistant Secretary Intelligence Enterprise Management in the Defence Intelligence Group.

Vanessa Ganley undertook 33 years of service in the Royal Australian Navy prior to joining the Australian Public Service in February 2021. As a specialist Naval Intelligence Officer, Vanessa spent many years in a variety of analytical, operational, policy, personnel and capability development related positions and roles; including Command, Agency and Liaison positions in Australia and deployed overseas. Vanessa was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the 2018 Australia Day Honours List for outstanding achievement in the delivery of intelligence to support joint operations.

Vanessa has worked extensively with Allies, and across Government, to deliver and support operational and strategic outcomes. Through her more recent roles in the APS, as Director of Intelligence Operations at Joint Operations Command, Deputy Commander of the Defence Sigint and Cyber Command, and as a Student at the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies, she has a developed a deep understanding of geo-strategic issues and a well-honed knowledge of policy aspects associated with the national security mission. In her current role, she is leading transformation across multiple enterprise level intelligence-professionalisation lines of effort, as well as delivering ‘business as usual’ missions of Estate, Governance, Security and Psychology for the Defence Intelligence Group.