ACT-IAC Cybersecurity COI November 2020

Friday, November 20, 2020 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Join the Cybersecurity COI virtual meeting for a panel discussion with federal Deputy Chief Information Officers about their roles in managing cyber threats in their organizations.

Deputy CIO Panel/Cyber Discussion Invited Panelists:
Ann Kim, Department of Education
Dominic Cussatt, Department of Veterans Affairs
Steven Hernandez, CISO, Department of Education, Moderator

Additional information will be available soon.

About the Panelists

Dominic Cussatt, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for IT / Deputy CIO, Department of Veterans Affairs
As Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology (PDAS/IT), Mr. Cussatt oversees the entire IT Program for the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a Fortune 10 sized agency servicing 22M US veterans with over $200B in annual budget and over 350,000 government staff. The VA IT program includes 24/7 IT operations spread across every US state and several overseas territories supporting 145 Hospitals and 1231 Outpatient Facilities (making VA the largest health care organization in the US), 56 Regional Benefits Offices, and 135 Veteran Cemeteries. He oversees VA's $4B annual IT budget and the activities of over 10,000 IT employees and contractors performing Account Management, Strategic Sourcing, IT Development and Operations, Information Security, IT Resource Management, Quality Assurance, and Performance and Risk Management. In his previous role as VA Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Mr. Cussatt oversaw the VA’s Enterprise Cybersecurity Program ensuring secure and reliable operation of VA’s IT infrastructure. Mr. Cussatt has over 25 years of public and private sector IT experience, and was with the US Department of Defence (DoD) CIO’s office for 12 years prior to VA. During his tenure as DoD Deputy CISO for Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy, he was also the Director of the DoD International Cybersecurity Program. In 2014, he was selected by the 28 NATO nations as the National Co-Chair of the NATO Information Assurance/Cyber Defense Capability Panel, the sole source of cybersecurity policy for the NATO Alliance. He also served over 3 years as DoD Tri-Chair for the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) Subcommittee, a national forum for US National Security System policy which published dozens of Federal cybersecurity policies under his tenure. Since 2007, Mr. Cussatt has been a member of the US Federal Government’s Joint Task Force Transformation Initiative, a US Civil/Defense/Intelligence partnership developing minimum Federal IT standards. The Initiative successfully unified the US Federal Government’s disparate cybersecurity standards by publishing 5 National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) special publications, including the NIST security control catalog and the NIST Risk Management Framework. He was twice awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defence (OSD) Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service (in 2014 & 2016), the OSD’s highest level career medaled award.

 

 

Ann Kim, Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Senior Agency Official for Privacy (SAOP), U.S. Department of Education
Ann currently serves as the Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Senior Agency Official for Privacy (SAOP) at the US Department of Education (ED). ED is a cabinet level agency with over 4,400 employees – geographically dispersed between Headquarters and 10 regional offices, ~$70B budget, and ~130 information systems that process over $1.0T in federal student aid and grants.  In concert with the CIO, Ann oversees a ~$750M information technology (IT) portfolio.  In her role, she serves as a principal advisor to the CIO, Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Secretary, and Secretary with respect to the use of IT to support and enable the Department’s mission and business processes.  Ann assists the CIO with the day-to-day coordination and management of the various functions within the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), and advises ED leadership regarding IT, information management, and information assurance.

Ann previously served as ED’s acting Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Director of Information Assurance Services (IAS) with responsibility for providing oversight of information assurance and cybersecurity.  And, prior to that, Ann served as ED’s Chief of Security Architecture and Engineering for 6 years with responsibility for defining ED’s enterprise security architecture.  In her information assurance and cybersecurity roles, Ann was responsible for ensuring compliance with and implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) and E-Government Act, to protect the information systems that enable ED’s business processes and ensure the confidentiality, privacy, integrity, and availability of our customer’s information.

Prior to joining ED, Ann worked at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) as the Chief of the NetOps Division, responsible for programmatic and technical oversight of all DISA NetOps programs to provide responsive, secure, and interoperable net-centric solutions necessary to operate and assure the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Global Information Grid (GIG) and DISA’s Enterprise Infrastructure in support of the Secretary of Defense, Combatant Commanders, Joint/combined task forces, Services, and Agencies.

Throughout Ann’s career she has provided leadership across very diverse teams to solve unique retail, financial, defense, and public sector challenges.  Her experience ranges from the strategic and organizational policy level, to the more tactical implementation, operations and maintenance.

 

 

 

Venue Address

Virtual Meeting