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Personal-Sector Cyber Chief Kirsten Davies Tapped to Lead DoD IT and Safety
President Donald Trump has nominated Kirsten Davies to function CIO of the Division of Protection – a pivotal position in securing and modernizing the Pentagon’s sprawling digital infrastructure. The nomination was submitted to Congress final week and has been referred to the Committee on Armed Companies for consideration.
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If confirmed, Davies will change into the principal IT adviser to the Secretary of Protection, tasked with overseeing “many nationwide safety and protection enterprise methods, managing info assets, and discovering efficiencies.” This consists of not solely the Pentagon’s IT providers but additionally cybersecurity technique, safe communications, protection enterprise methods, spectrum administration and community structure.
From command-and-control communications in battle zones to categorized intelligence platforms, the DoD CIO is tasked with imposing cybersecurity greatest practices whereas enabling innovation in rising domains akin to synthetic intelligence, knowledge science and area operations. It’s a extremely seen and politically delicate place: senate-confirmed and infrequently concerned in budgetary oversight, vendor negotiations and disaster response.
Not like many federal know-how leaders, Davies has spent a lot of her profession within the non-public sector, working throughout industries together with manufacturing, finance, power and telecom. She is the co-founder and CEO of Institute for Cyber, a non-profit for know-how and digital security. She has additionally labored as CISO at Unilever, The Estée Lauder Corporations and Barclays. Davies has additionally suggested on nationwide coverage as a member of the Nationwide Safety Institute’s Cyber and Tech Safety Council at George Mason College’s Antonin Scalia Regulation College.
“I am grateful for the President’s nomination and humbled on the alternative to serve my beloved nation and the unbelievable women and men in uniform,” she posted on LinkedIn, confirming the nomination.
In a 2023 interplay with Info Safety Media Group on the sidelines of the RSA Convention, Davies mirrored on her management model, describing CISOs as “threat executives” who should be capable of “translate very complicated subjects within the language that our enterprise colleagues can perceive.”
“As CISOs, now we have an rising accountability to be participating with our enterprise colleagues. We’re a enterprise govt on the finish of the day. So we should be capable of interact on the danger discussions which are there, bearing in mind operations, markets, credit score, know-how footprints, digital footprints, knowledge in every single place, all of those several types of issues,” she stated.
The shift from a civilian cybersecurity chief to some of the consequential cyber governance roles within the U.S. federal authorities means Davies is anticipated to drive modernization throughout the Division’s digital ecosystem, with a particular concentrate on the mixing of AI, automation and outcome-driven procurement fashions. Her private-sector governance expertise could affect how the DoD manages threat, vendor relationships and cross-agency coordination.
Her nomination comes at a time of heightened geopolitical pressure, the place cyberwarfare, AI-driven misinformation and infrastructure sabotage are rising threats. The CIO’s workplace performs a important position in supporting the Pentagon’s command and management functionality – central to U.S. army operations all over the world.
Davies will succeed Katie Arrington, who’s at the moment performing the duties of the DoD CIO, following interim management by Leslie Beavers. The final Senate-confirmed CIO, John Sherman, served for a lot of the Biden administration.
