Lee Bagan is a senior leader in compliance and financial crime oversight, a United States Army Special Forces veteran, and an advocate for students with disabilities. He is the Director of Global Intelligence at Bridge, a financial technology company acquired by Stripe, where he develops and manages programs to mitigate financial crime risk in digital assets and cross-border payments. His career integrates 15 years of experience in national security and operational intelligence with expertise in private-sector finance and regulatory technology. ^{[1] [4]}​

Education

Bagan earned a Bachelor of Arts in Middle Eastern Studies in 2005, followed by a Master of Arts in the same field in 2007, both from the University of Texas at Austin. He later pursued concurrent graduate degrees at Stanford University while on active military duty. He completed his Juris Doctor (JD) from Stanford Law School in two years, graduating in 2022. In 2024, he earned a PhD in International Economic History from Stanford University. His doctoral research focused on criminality within the digital asset sector. ^[3]​

Career

Bagan began his career in 2008 as an Army Special Forces Officer under the U.S. Special Operations Command, serving for 15 years in roles focused on national security and operational intelligence. His assignments included deployments with Combined Joint Special Operations Task Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, work with Special Operations Command in Lebanon, and positions at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and DARPA. From 2017 to 2023, he also served as a financial intelligence liaison and director for Special Operations Command, working closely with interagency stakeholders.

In 2018, while on active duty, he began a concurrent advisory role at the Hoover Institution, contributing to teams focused on foreign policy and geopolitical economic analysis. His work involved research support for senior experts and assisting with strategic assessments within those programs. He also helped form a professional forum dedicated to special operations topics.

After transitioning from military service in 2023, he entered the private sector as a Vice President at TJM Capital Partners in Chicago, applying his defense and intelligence experience to private-sector financial matters for 6 months. In 2024, he joined Bridge as Director of Global Intelligence. His work centers on global threat analysis, financial crime risk, and compliance oversight for digital asset and cross-border payments activity. He continues in this position following Bridge’s acquisition by Stripe. ^{[1] [2] [3]}​

Interviews

Financial Crime Compliance

In his interview with Persona, Bagan described how his position at Bridge involved overseeing efforts to detect and report financial crime while improving the company’s Suspicious Activity Report process. He explained that many financial institutions relied on slow and fragmented systems, where investigations required gathering information across multiple tools before a report could even be drafted. Based on his experience working with digital asset misuse in national security roles, he viewed accurate and timely reporting as essential to maintaining trust with government authorities and preventing illicit access to financial infrastructure.

He outlined the development of Bridge’s SAR filing system, which he built in collaboration with Persona. The system combined onboarding, monitoring, and risk data into a single workspace, introduced guided investigative workflows, enabled integrated submission to FinCEN, and created permanent records for review. This structure reduced manual work, shortened investigation timelines, and allowed analysts to focus their efforts on high-risk cases. Bagan noted that these improvements supported stronger outcomes in fraud and AML case handling and contributed to greater confidence from regulators, banks, and partners. ^[5]​