CISA Replaces Chair of Supply-Chain Risk Management Task Force on Network Tech
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By
Mariam Baksh
Bob Kolasky is leaving government for the private sector, after leading the public-private task force alongside executives from trade associations of the largest critical software and networking gear providers.
Mara Winn, a Department of Homeland Security official with a decade of experience supporting the department in various roles, will take the reins as government co-chair of a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency task force established to facilitate industry input toward creating more resilient supply chains of information and communications technology.
Winn joined CISA’s National Risk Management center last summer as associate director for planning and coordination, after a series of stints inside and outside the department, including at a firm where she worked on DHS’ cybersecurity and supply chain risk management programs.
“She's been with us since August, 2021,” Bob Kolasky, the outgoing director of the NRMC who has been co-chairing the task force, told Nextgov. “So she's been sitting with me on the task force meetings since that period, so I think she's well positioned.”
Leadership of the task force is split between a member of the government and two industry representatives, one from US Telecom and the other from the Information Technology Industry Council. The top information and communications technology companies represented by these trade associations are suppliers of the kind of critical software on which the Biden administration is looking to tighten procurement controls, after a series of massive hacks heading into 2021.
Mona Harrington, a former Elections Assistance Commission official, will serve as Acting Associate Director for the NRMC after Friday, Kolasky’s last day, according to a DHS spokesperson.
Kolasky is set to join supply chain risk management firm Exiger as senior vice president for critical infrastructure. He’s interested in the company’s work on commercial analytics.
“I've always been a big believer in public-private and that both the public sector and the private sector can contribute to making the country more secure,” he said.