Owen West is a United States Marine, banker, and author who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict from 2017 to 2019.

[10] West interned for J. Aron, the commodities trading unit of Goldman Sachs, in 1997 and joined them full-time as a natural gas futures trader in 1998.

In his 19 years at Goldman, he has taken four leaves-of-absence: to race in the 2000 Eco Challenge,[11] to attempt the North Face of Mount Everest in 2001,[12] and to join the Marines in Iraq in 2003 and 2006–2007.

"[16] In August 2021, West was named as a member of American facial recognition company Clearview AI's advisory board.

[20] Dave Grossman, the bestselling author of On Killing, called it "The single most important book to come out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[16] He is the son of Bing West, a former Marine Colonel and Vietnam veteran who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during Ronald Reagan's presidency.