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This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morel. Brought to you by Lockheed Martin. Your mission is ours.

So, Ronnie, you were doing fantastic at the agency. You had an extraordinarily bright career ahead of you. Why did you decide to leave?

Leaving was one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. We had all sorts of changes happening to CIA and the Intelligence Community writ large.

We had the introduction of the director of National Intelligence, which to me made me feel a little bit diminished, I think, at the agency, because we felt less central than we were before.

And some of the leadership that I was witnessing, they're great people, smart people, but a lot of the advice I was getting, we were getting, was just hunker down, keep your head down, keep doing what you're doing.

I wanted more than that. I wanted a plan. I wanted a direction.

Having served in overseas, I did know that there were multinational corporations that should have a use for someone who understands China, who understands the intelligence process and how useful and important intelligence is to decision making.

And so I just looked for jobs that way. By complete chance and luck, the Walt Disney company, which had reimagined how to conduct its global security enterprise, decide they wanted an intelligence mission to be part of that.

And how much did you use the skills that you learned at the agency?

Every day, the key skills for a great intelligence analyst are twofold. One is your ability to express yourself in writing or speaking or, however, the other is critical thinking.

So if you've got those two skills and you know how to apply them, every day when you look through what seems to be just regular data information news, it becomes intelligence when you think about what this means for the company that you're working for.

And then being able to explain that to your bosses, to your clients inside the firm is and how persuasive you can be.

All of those things I learned at the agency and that was critical to whatever success I had at Disney.

On a cold night in 2010, a boy is stopped by the police while walking home from a party in the Bronx. He's only 16. He's been stopped by the police before, but this time is different.

In a special four part series, the Generation Y podcast unravels the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy who was falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held without bail at Reikers Island for three years.

He endured regular abuse by prison staff and inmates and was held in solitary confinement for more than 700 consecutive days.

Three years later, Khalif was released, never having stood trial. This is a story that digs into the injustice of the justice system and a young life caught in the middle.

We say innocent until proven guilty, but where do we draw the line between due process and cruelty?

To hear this four part series, follow Generation Y wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen at free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.

Rodney Farron is a partner at Crumpton Group, a business intelligence and strategy firm. He is also a former CIA analyst.

I recently sat down with Rodney with the intention of talking about life after being a CIA analyst, but we ended up talking about both his time on the inside as well as the many interesting things he has done on the outside.

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