Chris DeRusha
Golden Gov: Federal Executive of the Year
Chris DeRusha is closing in on his three-year anniversary as the Federal Chief Information Security Officer, a position in which he’s responsible for chairing a 25-member council of his federal CISO peers and overseeing everything across agencies from the implementation of phishing-resistant multifactor authentication to identity and access management capabilities. In his capacity as deputy national cyber director, DeRusha oversees cybersecurity programs for more than 100 federal executive branch agencies, with a yearly IT spend of $87 billion. DeRusha said during the Google Public Sector Forum in October that now is the time for the government to prepare for “massive” long-term challenges. “And we’re taking a swing and making” progress, he said.