Join the Homeland Security and Defense Forum on May 24th for a roundtable discussion with Mr. Brandon Wales, Executive Director at CISA. The discussion will highlight CISA’s strategic priorities as the cyber landscape continues to evolve, continued efforts to bolster the cyber defenses of federal civilian agencies and critical infrastructure sectors, and how industry can be a better partner to CISA in protecting the broader cyber ecosystem. To RSVP, please contact rsvp@hsdf.org.
About the career of Mr. Brandon Wales
Brandon Wales is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) first Executive Director, serving as the senior career executive helping oversee execution of CISA operations. He is responsible for leading long-term strategy development, managing CISA-wide policy initiatives and ensuring effective operational collaboration across the Agency.
In February 2022, Wales was appointed as the lead for the Federal Government’s domestic preparedness and response related to the Russian-Ukraine crisis. In this capacity, Wales was responsible for establishing and leading an interagency Unified Coordination Group (UCG) to ensure unity of effort, building U.S. government-wide strategic objectives, identifying and resolving gaps in operations and interagency coordination, and coordinating with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial officials, as well as representatives of private sector and non-governmental entities.
From November 2020 through July 2021, Wales was the Acting Director of CISA. In this capacity, he led CISA’s efforts to defend civilian networks, manage systemic risk to national critical functions, and work across both the public and private sectors to raise the security baseline of the Nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure. During his tenure as the acting Director, he led the agency’s response to the SolarWinds Orion Supply Chain Attacks, Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, Pulse Connect Secure vulnerabilities, and the Kaseya VSA supply chain ransomware attack, among many others, while completing the stand-up and reorganization of the Agency following the passage of the CISA Act of 2018, which established CISA as an independent agency.
From August 2017 to December 2019, Wales directly supported the Secretary of Homeland Security beginning as the Senior Counselor to the Secretary for Cyber and Resilience, Wales was responsible for advising on cybersecurity, emergency management, incident response and building a more resilient nation. Following that assignment, he served as the Deputy Chief of Staff (Acting), developing and advancing the Department’s strategic priorities. In June 2019, Wales assumed the role of Chief of Staff (Acting), assisting the Secretary in overseeing the Department, ensuring close coordination across its operational components and managing interagency relationships.
Wales’ experience within and understanding of the Department is both broad and deep. He served as the Director of the DHS Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis (OCIA), which provided integrated analysis of cyber and physical risks to the Nation’s critical infrastructure.
From 2009 to 2014, Wales was the Director of the Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC), an all-hazards analytic resource for public and private sector partners covering the full array of risks facing the infrastructure community. In this capacity, he oversaw the Department’s advanced modeling, simulation, and analysis program, leading a team of researchers conducting ground-breaking and forward-leaning analysis of some of the Nation’s most complex infrastructure challenges.
Wales has been called upon to support a variety of Department-wide initiatives. When the Department began working on the first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review in 2009, Wales was asked to lead the review of the counterterrorism and cyber security mission areas. Following the 2013 release of Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, Wales led the effort to identify critical infrastructure at potential catastrophic risk from cybersecurity incidents.
Wales’ contributions have been recognized with an Exceptional Performance Award from the Director of National Intelligence, a DHS Secretary’s Award for Excellence, and two DHS Distinguished Service Medals, the Department’s highest civilian award.
Before joining the Department in 2005, Wales was the national security aide to United States Senator Jon Kyl and a Senior Associate at a Washington-based foreign policy and national security think-tank.
Wales received his Bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and his Master’s degree from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
