National Cyber Director Chris Inglis Named to 2022 Wash100 for Leading Cyber Innovation, Policy for Federal Agencies to Protect U.S. National Security

Executive Mosaic is pleased to announce that John “Chris” Inglis, national cyber director for the Executive Office of the President, has been named a recipient of the 2022 Wash100 Award for his leadership and vision in his new role to guide federal agencies to advance their cybersecurity standards and evolve their capabilities to protect U.S. national security from potential threats.

This marks the first time in his illustrious career that Chris Inglis has received a Wash100 Award, the most prestigious award in all of government contracting (GovCon). Visit Wash100.com to cast a vote for Inglis as one of your TEN votes to advocate for your favorite leaders in the federal and government sectors.

In addition, Inglis will act as a keynote speaker for Potomac Officers Club during the upcoming Digital Currency and National Security Forum this Thursday. He will be addressing the implications, risks, challenges and opportunities digital currencies pose for the future of the U.S. economy and national security along with several other crypto experts and industry leaders.

Visit PotomacOfficersClub.com to learn more about the future of decentralized cryptocurrency from industry leaders like Chris Inglis and fellow 2022 Wash100 winner David Jevans. Click here to register for Thursday’s Digital Currency and National Security Forum.

Inglis has served across the government for more than 40 years of federal service, including more than 30 years of service with the U.S. Air Force. Most notably, Inglis served the NSA in a wide range of senior leadership roles for 28 years until retiring from DoD in 2014. He began his career with the agency as a computer scientist and eventually was the NSA deputy director between 2006 and 2014.

Through the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, the Office of the National Cyber Director was created with President Biden nominating Chris Inglis as the first national cyber director in order to coordinate with federal agencies’ disparate work on cyber issues and oversee the development of the U.S.’ digital defense strategy.

Inglis has advocated for his strategy to “toughen up” federal agencies as most agencies work to advance their digital defenses. Specifically, Inglis is looking to prod agencies to better protect critical infrastructure together, strengthen long-term resilience and prioritize cybersecurity in their budgets.

Cabinet secretaries and agency directors need to “understand that they’re the ones that are being held accountable, not their IT shops,” Inglis said. “The bad actors are not standing still,” said Inglis. He plans to focus on how to “hold them at bay and ensure that they don’t succeed in ways that, far too often in the past, they have.”

One of the initiatives that Inglis hopes to establish is a bureau of cyber statistics that would collect and analyze data related to cyberthreats and cyber incidents. He also cited how threat data could help the government understand how to better respond to threat actors as the White House considers creating the bureau into 2022.

“I would observe that to properly address risk we have to first understand it. We have to understand where it’s concentrated, where it cascades, what causes it, and more importantly to then discover how to address it,” Inglis said during the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) in August.

Prior to being confirmed as the National Cyber Director, Chris Inglis advocated that ransomware was a “scourge” that poses a threat to national security and suggested ways on how to protect critical infrastructure during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing back in June.

He cited the importance of making critical systems defensible and how security personnel can mitigate threats through software patching, multifactor authentication, network segmentation, and other basic cyber practices.

Executive Mosaic is proud to recognize John “Chris” Inglis for being named a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient. As a first time winner of the most coveted award in GovCon and after assuming a newly created role with the White House, Inglis will be one of the most significant executives of consequence to the entire federal landscape and his impact will be felt for years to come.

Visit Wash100.com to vote for Chris Inglis and who you believe deserves the recognition as the most significant leader to the GovCon community and federal landscape.