Chris DeRusha, formerly the federal chief information security officer and deputy national cyber director, has transitioned to a new role at Google Cloud where he will oversee the company’s global public sector compliance initiatives, as announced in a recent press release.
After serving over three years as the federal CISO, DeRusha departed the federal government last month to guide the expansion of Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and security products across the public sector, both domestically and internationally.
DeRusha will report directly to Jeanette Manfra, Google Cloud’s global director of security and compliance. Manfra, who has previously held positions within the Department of Homeland Security and as the White House’s director for critical infrastructure cybersecurity, stated, “Chris’s unparalleled experience in designing and implementing advanced security and critical infrastructure programs in both the private and public sectors will be invaluable to our team and our global public sector customers.”
Manfra also noted that DeRusha’s extensive background in federal government grants him a unique perspective on the national security challenges faced by governments and various industry sectors.
During his tenure as federal CISO, DeRusha was instrumental in crafting the White House’s artificial intelligence executive order and the Biden administration’s 2021 executive order on cybersecurity, alongside the subsequent national cybersecurity strategy and implementation plan. He led a council of 25 agency CISOs, spearheaded the government-wide adoption of multifactor authentication, and coordinated broad federal cybersecurity strategies at ONCD.
At last October’s Google Public Sector Forum, DeRusha expressed his views on the administration’s shift from addressing legacy modernization to tackling significant long-term challenges, including AI strategy and combating ransomware. He remarked, “We’ve taken on pretty much every big challenge that we’ve been talking about for a couple of decades. And we’re making progress.”
This move marks DeRusha’s return to the private sector for the first time since 2018, after a year with Ford Motor Company as the manager of enterprise vulnerability management and application security. His extensive career also includes nearly six years at DHS, two years as the White House’s senior cybersecurity adviser, two years in prominent security roles for the state of Michigan, and a stint as CISO for President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign before his federal appointment in January 2021.
Source: fedscoop.com
