Lori Ciana was a Starfleet officer who served in the 23rd century.
Ciana was born in 2228, and whilst growing up discovered an interest in psychology. When she was old enough to enter Starfleet she signed aboard a starship as an assistant psychologist. However, she soon realised that their wasn't a promotion chain aboard a starship as a pshychologist, and despite loving space duty, she applied for a transfer to command.
By 2270, Ciana was a Vice Admiral and was head of a special diplomatic division at Starfleet Headquarters, and was directly underneath Admiral Heihachiro Nogura in the chain of command. Despite having a choice assignment at Headquarters, Ciana wanted to advance her career further by being appointed as Starfleet's liaison to the Federation Council. Despite repeated requests to Admiral Nogura, Nogura thought that Ciana directness did not lend to a successful career in diplomacy.
So in 2270, she successfully lobbied for James T. Kirk to join her department so that he could teach Ciana all of the diplomatic tricks and traits her perfected during the five years he commanded the USS Enterprise. While Kirk didn't want to be tied to the Admiralty, Ciana was able to persuade him by promising to do everything possible for Kirk to command the Enterprise again when the refit was completed. (TOS novel: The Lost Years).
Ciana died in 2271 in a transporter accident during the rush to make the refitted Enterprise operational in time to intercept V'Ger before it reached Earth. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture novelization)