President Biden announced his intent to nominate Harry Coker, Jr., to be the next National Cyber Director.
The first National Cyber Director, Chris Inglis, stepped down from the role in February.
Coker is a senior national security leader with more than four decades of public service, including in leadership positions in the U.S. Navy, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA). From 2017 to 2019, Coker served as the Executive Director of the NSA, where he helped lead and manage the largest component of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and prior to that, as the Director of Open Source Enterprise in the CIA’s Directorate of Digital Innovation.
He presently serves as a Senior Fellow at Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security and as an outside advisor for private cyber and technology companies.
Born and raised in Parsons, Kansas, Coker began his distinguished career in public service at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and went on to serve for 20 years in the U.S. Navy in various positions, including as a surface warfare officer at sea, an engineering duty officer, and in the Intelligence Community. He is also a graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School and Georgetown University Law Center.
Following his government service, Coker has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations, including the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, the U.S. Navy Memorial, Dog Tag, Inc., the Editorial Board of Studies in Intelligence, and the Historic Ships in Baltimore, a maritime museum in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Coker has earned numerous awards and decorations, including the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Presidential Rank Award, the NSA Director’s Distinguished Service Medal, the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Outstanding Leadership Award, and the CIA’s Don Cryer Award for Diversity & Inclusion.
