Antony Blinken (former Deputy Secretary of State under Obama) and Michèle Flournoy (former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under Obama) found WestExec Advisors, a strategic consulting firm named after West Executive Avenue — the street between the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The firm's business model is explicit: help technology companies navigate government procurement and win defense and intelligence contracts, leveraging the founders' relationships and knowledge of how these agencies make purchasing decisions.
WestExec represents the evolution of the revolving door from incidental career path to deliberate business model. Previous iterations — Donovan returning to Wall Street, Dulles at Sullivan & Cromwell, Woolsey's consulting career — involved individuals monetizing their credentials. WestExec institutionalizes the process: a firm specifically designed to profit from the movement of senior officials between government and the private sector, with a client list kept secret to avoid transparency.
When Biden wins the 2020 election, WestExec's personnel become the administration's national security leadership. Blinken becomes Secretary of State. Avril Haines, a WestExec consultant, becomes Director of National Intelligence. Other WestExec-affiliated personnel take positions across State, Defense, and the intelligence community. The firm's undisclosed client list creates an unresolvable conflict of interest: the officials overseeing defense and intelligence procurement previously advised private companies on how to win those same contracts, and the public cannot determine which companies they advised.
The related Pine Island Capital Partners — an investment firm also connected to Blinken — extends the model from consulting into direct capital investment in defense and technology companies. Together, WestExec and Pine Island represent the full maturation of the intelligence-industrial revolving door: not just individuals moving between sectors, but institutional vehicles designed to extract value from the movement, with financial interests that follow personnel into government positions.