Searle is an Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington; and founder/principal of ASA Risk Consultants, a Seattle-based advisory firm. She spent 10 years at Washington Mutual Bank, most of them as a senior executive. Annie is a member of the CISA 10 Regional Infrastructure Security Group. She was an inaugural inductee in 2011 into the Hall of Fame for the International Network of Women in Homeland Security and Emergency Management. She writes a column monthly for ASA News & Notes and is the author of several books or book chapters. She is also a member of the emeritus board of directors for the Seattle Public Library Foundation.

From 1999 to 2009, Searle worked at Washington Mutual, first as its enterprise technology architect, then most of that time as senior executive in charge of enterprise risk services, and as chair of the corporate crisis management team. She is one of the authors of the 2007 Blue Ribbon Commission on Mega-Catastrophes Report, where she contributed in particular to the examinations of pandemic and of earthquakes. As the report was released, she took questions at the National Press Club on its pandemic recommendations. That same year, she chaired a Critical Infrastructure Protection Congress panel, inviting the chairs of five critical sectors as well as the head of the DHS Private Sector Office to participate. She has published two journal articles on pandemic readiness preparations by the U.S. financial sector.

Searle is one of the founders and served as President & CEO of Delphi Computers & Peripherals from 1984 to 1999, earning both a Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year and a Matrix Table Woman of Achievement leadership award. She is a lifetime member of the Institute of American Entrepreneurs.

Searle is the author of Risk Reconsidered, published in July of 2018. She is the author of another book for the general public, titled Advice From A Risk Detective, now in its third edition. She is editor-in-chief and publisher of five other books, Reflections on Risk, Volumes I, II, III, IV, V, and VI,  collections of research notes written primarily by UW Information School students. Her chapter exploring root causes of conduct risk is part of a collection titled Conduct Risk: A Practitioner's Guide (London: Risk Books, 2016). In the spring of 2017, she was invited to join the global cybersecurity policy initiative being hosted by the Jackson School of International Studies. She is one of three developers of the "Cybersecurity & Technology Futures" series for winter and spring of 2019.