Amaryllis Fox

Amaryllis Fox Kennedy (born Amaryllis Damerell Thornber; September 22, 1980) is an American former Central Intelligence Agency officer, government official, campaign manager, tech entrepreneur, and writer serving from 2025 to 2026 in various positions in the Trump administration, including at the United States Intelligence Community and the White House.

Kennedy was the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Policy and Capabilities She is also a member of President Donald Trump's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB). She served in the CIA from 2002 to 2010.

Kennedy wrote a memoir about her time in the CIA, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, published by Knopf Doubleday in 2019. She hosted the six-episode Netflix documentary series The Business of Drugs, released in 2020. She was a campaign manager for her father-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 independent presidential campaign.

Early life Amaryllis Fox Kennedy was born in New York City as Amaryllis Damerell Thornber. Her mother, Lalage Damerell, is a retired English actress. Her father, Hodson Thornber, was an economist. Her mother has since married businessman and film producer Steven Rales. When Fox Kennedy was eight years old, her friend Laura died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. She said of the event in an interview, "I remember being very, very overwhelmed by the loss and my dad intervened and said, 'you have to understand the forces that took her or they will drown you'." She completed undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford in 2002. She has said that while at Oxford, she rebuffed approaches from the Secret Intelligence Service. For her master's thesis, Fox Kennedy developed an algorithm intended to identify local terrorist safe havens, which attracted the CIA's attention. A book, In the Quiet Land, was set to be published in 2002, with film rights optioned to Golden Square Pictures and screenplay by Nick Thomas. She has said she assumed the cover of an art dealer and focused on preventing terror organizations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. That year, Mulu was featured in Mashable's list of "10 Hot Startups Changing the Face of Retail".

In 2014, Fox Kennedy joined Twitter as a product manager of its global e-commerce team. During her tenure, she worked on initiatives such as "Products and Places", a feature that allowed users to explore collections of goods and services curated by brands, celebrities, and media outlets. These efforts were part of Twitter's early experiments with in-platform shopping, including the "Buy Button" pilot program. She left the company in 2015.

Television and public speaking Fox Kennedy hosts the Netflix documentary series The Business of Drugs, for which she traveled to several countries while in the third trimester of pregnancy. She speaks at events around the world on dialogue and peacekeeping. On October 13, 2023, upon Kucinich's resignation, Fox Kennedy became the sole manager of the campaign.

Political and public service appointments On February 11, 2025, Kennedy was appointed to serve as a member of Donald Trump's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB). By July, she had joined lobbying firm Ballard Partners, to lead its tech and AI practice group.

Personal life While living undercover in Shanghai, Fox Kennedy married a fellow CIA officer, Dean Fox. The couple had a daughter, and later divorced.

Fox Kennedy's stepfather is Steven Rales, a Hollywood mogul and billionaire, who owns the media distribution companies Janus Films and The Criterion Collection. He also holds a 20% stake in the Indiana Pacers of the National Basketball Association.

Fox Kennedy's memoir, Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, describes her experiences as an officer. Before its release, some former CIA officers took issue with her manuscript being submitted to publisher Knopf Doubleday without first being approved by the CIA's Publication Review Board, a potential violation of nondisclosure agreements that CIA staff sign. Some former CIA case officers have expressed skepticism about elements of Fox Kennedy's accounts of events or raised questions about the circumvention of the CIA's approval process. Fox Kennedy has responded that she took care not to reveal potentially sensitive details, and that some characters are composites.