The incumbent CIA Director Gina Haspel served as station chief of CIA in Baku, Azerbaijan from 1996 to 1998.

The station chief, also called the chief of station (COS), is the top U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official stationed in a foreign country. COS is a person who manages all CIA operations in that country.

Gina Haspel held several undercover overseas positions, for many of which she was station chief.

According to Chicago Tribune, her first chief of station assignment, in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1996, prompted skepticism from male colleagues, who thought the CIA shouldn't send a woman to such a remote and rough location, according to people who worked with Haspel.

According to BBC, she had a "15-year secret mission in Russia."

Haspel has attracted controversy for her role as chief of a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 in which prisoners were tortured. Her first field assignment was from 1987–1989 in Ethiopia, Central Eurasia, Turkey.

On Twitter, Snowden wrote of Gina Haspel: “The new CIA director was a key part of the torture program and its illegal cover-up. Her name was on the Top Secret order demanding the destruction of tapes to prevent them being seen by Congress. Incredible.”