Lt. Col. Christina Fanitzi hails from Milton, New York, and serves as a Military Intelligence officer. She graduated in 2003 from George Washington University and commissioned from Georgetown University ROTC as a distinguished military graduate.
She entered active duty immediately upon graduation and served as the Service Platoon Leader and Executive Officer in the 3rd Military Intelligence (MI) Battalion (BN) (Aerial Exploitation), U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, Korea where she and her Soldiers provided logistics support to 24-hour aerial intelligence collection operations along Korea’s Demilitarized Zone. Following her Korea tour, she earned a position as a performer in the 2005 U.S. Army Soldier Show before she reported to serve as the 1st Armored Division Special Security Officer in Wiesbaden, Germany.
In 2008, Fanitzi deployed with 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as the BCT’s Human-Counterintelligence Manager (S2X) where she was responsible for all human, counterintelligence, and detainee interrogation operations. She later assumed command of the Brigade’s Direct Support MI Company during the 15-month deployment.
At the completion of Company Command and the MI Captains Career Course, Fanitzi served as an Instructor at West Point. For two years, she taught Military Leadership, Accounting, and Negotiations in the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership (BSL) Department and led the West Point Negotiation Project. She created the first Army Negotiation Conference, served as a Council on Foreign Relations term member, and received the BSL Teaching-in-Excellence Award, as well as recognition as a Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence finalist – an honor given to the Academy’s top three instructors.
In 2015, Fanitzi reported to the 504th MI BDE at Fort Hood, Texas (known as Fort Cavazos since 2023), where she first served as the 303d MI BN Executive Officer and later assumed duties as the Brigade’s Operations Officer. She served in this capacity from 2016-2018 in preparation for, and through, the unit’s deployment in support of Operation Resolute Support.
She returned to Washington, D.C., to serve as a White House Fellow placed in the National Economic Council where she served as Senior Policy Advisor to Director Lawrence Kudlow and coordinated policy recommendations on American Entrepreneurship, Workforce Development, and Travel and Tourism. She then served in the Pentagon as the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army. She most recently served as the 205th Military Intelligence Battalion (Operations) Commander at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, and is headed to the U.S. Army War College to serve as a Fellow at Columbia University SIPA within the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War & Peace Studies Program.
Fanitzi is an alumna of MIT’s Seminar XXI National Security Studies Program and St. Gallen Leadership Symposium. She is a graduate of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where she earned her Master of Business Administration and distinction as the Julia Stell Award recipient, and the Counterintelligence Special Agent Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Her awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (1 Silver OLC), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal (2 OLC), Army Achievement Medal (3 OLC), Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, and the Presidential Service, Army Staff Identification, German Armed Forces Proficiency, and Parachutist Badges.
The most important people in her life are her parents, her brother, her husband, their infant child, and their doggo. They serve as a great source of support, allowing her to remain grounded, and never forget, that at her root, she is a proud Irish-Italian New Yorker.