Rupal Patel, author of From CIA to CEO—published by Heligo, a division of the U.K.'s Bonnier Books—has worn many hats over the years, from from intelligence analyst to business entrepreneur to, now, author. She spoke with PW about how her experience at the CIA shaped her approach to business and leadership, she transformed her experience at the CIA into actionable insights for her debut book.
What was your path to writing this book?
I've always written and wanted to write a book since I was a child. After finishing business school, I had worked on a novel—a fictionalized autobiography of my time at the agency as a woman working in war zones. I didn't end up publishing it, so I continued writing for myself. What surprised me was that I switched from writing fiction to chronicling my experiences transitioning out of the CIA, starting businesses in England, and documenting the culture shocks and challenges of building a business from scratch. Initially, I was capturing these insights for myself, but over time, I started sharing them in a small newsletter to clients and people I was meeting.
This evolved over about three years before I started thinking it could become a book. The pain of not writing it became greater than the pain of sitting down and tackling it. In my consulting work, the same themes kept emerging around purpose, meaning, and living a life of your own design. These timeless topics around performance and fulfillment became the foundation. While the book was conceptually in the making for 40-plus years, the actual work took about five years of thinking and two months of writing.
How did you end up with your publisher?
I was brought in by an editor who was starting a new imprint at Bonnier focused on "smart thinking" titles. It felt like an opportunity—a new imprint with resources behind them to make a big splash. That was part of my calculation in choosing them over the other four offers we received.
How does the title CIA to CEO resonate in different markets?
It definitely captures people's attention. The CIA has a mixed reputation worldwide, but in the U.K., it's actually really positive and strong. It gives the book—and by extension, me—a bit more gravitas.
When we were shopping for foreign translation rights, the Germans didn't want to touch it because having "CIA" in the title was too charged for them. It's been interesting to see how it's perceived in different markets. Foreign rights have been sold in some surprising places. We have two Chinese deals—one in Taiwan and one in mainland China, there’s a Polish translation, as well as another in Greece, and others in the works.
Who is this book actually written for?
That's the question I've been wanting to answer. It's not just for CEOs, and not just for people who view themselves as leaders in any formal way. For me, it's about "small-L leadership"—leading your own life and the people around you from wherever you stand.
The interesting part is: How do I live in a world with expectations and assumptions? How do I stay true to myself? How do I even know what being true to myself means? These more philosophical, timeless questions—that's who this book is for. It's for folks who want to lead their own lives, who don't want to be passive recipients of life, but actively make choices and own the ramifications of those choices.
My favorite part of the book is where I talk about living an absolute life versus a relative life. I quote my dad who says that the struggle is to learn how to live an absolute life and not a relative life—where you don't define yourself in opposition to or in relation to others.
What are your thoughts on former CIA officers writing books?
I think there's a certain type of person who goes into these worlds—at our best, we're curious, open-minded, inquisitive people who like to think about things and make connections. For me, one of the most gratifying parts of writing this book was making connections between this rarefied, secretive world and the rest of the world.
There's also huge market interest from people on the outside who want to peek inside. I remember my agent and editor encouraging me to "CIA-ify" things because that's the hook—that's what interests people. So there's this confluence of marketability and those of us who want to share something we think is interesting. When we were shopping my book for U.S. deals, several major publishers said, "We've already got a CIA book coming out," which made me wonder how many former CIA officers are writing books!
What communication lessons from your CIA experience apply to writing and business messaging?
At its core, it's about empathetic communication. Our role as analysts wasn't just to provide assessments, but to ensure that how we communicated was relevant, useful, and spoke the language of the person in front of us. For example, the level of detail provided to our highest-level customer, the president, would be very different from what we'd share with special forces units on the ground. It's about taking the same message but making sure you're speaking the language of your audience. It's not just about word choice, but about the level of detail you provide in different contexts and having the ability to gauge your audience in real time. The message stays the same, but you need to be agile in how you deliver it.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
