The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has tapped seasoned government technology and security leader Jeff Conklin as its new Chief Security Officer (CSO), the agency announced this week on LinkedIn.
Conklin comes to the role with a deep bench of federal service and enterprise IT leadership experience. He served as the Chief Security Officer and Chief Information Officer at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he oversaw both cybersecurity and agency-wide information technology operations. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Chief Information Officer for the U.S. Coast Guard.
His long federal career also includes a leadership role at the U.S. Department of Education as Director of Technology Services. There, he directed a $27 million annual IT services budget and managed a combined contractor and federal workforce of over 160, serving the needs of more than 5,000 agency employees.
Earlier in his career, Conklin worked in a series of roles at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), where he led enterprise IT projects supporting the Department of Defense and global medical networks. He also served as Director of Operations and an assistant professor at the National Defense University’s Information Resources Management College, training military and civilian professionals in systems lifecycle management and procurement.
Between government roles, Conklin served as Chief Executive Officer of the Washington School Information Processing Cooperative (WSIPC), a tech-focused municipal corporation that supported IT operations and ERP systems for more than 280 school districts across Washington state.
(AI was used in part to facilitate this article.)
