CISO Schneider exits OMB for Venable post

Federal Chief Information Security Officer Grant Schneider is leaving the federal government to take a job at Venable.

Schneider, one of the longest tenured cybersecurity officials at the White House, was a holdover from the Obama administration and served as acting CISO until July 2018, when he was named to the post full-time. Along the way he picked up additional responsibilities as senior director for cybersecurity on the National Security Council and led the Vulnerabilities Equities Process, an interagency board charged with determining whether the federal government reveals a zero-day cybersecurity vulnerability to the public or keeps it secret for exploitation by intelligence agencies.

As CISO he oversaw an overhaul of the CyberStat program that evaluates the cybersecurity posture and problem spots for individual federal agencies and pushed the federal government to move toward a zero trust security model in the wake of numerous insider-led breaches.

He was named a Fed 100 Winner in 2016 for his work advising then-Federal CIO Tony Scott and establishing the Office of Management and Budget’s E-Gov Cyber and National Security Unit. He was also detailed to assist the Office of Personnel Management respond to a major breach in 2015 that exposed tens of millions of federal employees' personnel records.

Schneider will serve as senior director of cybersecurity services in Venable's Washington, D.C. office.

"Venable presented the rare opportunity to work with some of the nation's leading minds in shaping the future of cybersecurity from within the private sector," Schneider said. "I have spent my nearly 28 years of government service implementing innovative programs and policies on a national scale and am eager to stretch these muscles in new ways to advance the cybersecurity goals of the firm’s clients."

Venable's cybersecurity practice includes former White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Ari Schwartz and Jeremy Grant, who headed up the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace at the National Institute for Standards and Technology.