Advice for the cyber czar: Make friends with OMB

During a press conference Feb. 9, Melissa Hathaway, the Obama administration’s former acting senior director for cyberspace, said the strongest ally the cyber coordinator needs or should have is in the Office of Management and Budget.

“I found that when I was in the White House, and even when I was in the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] that that was really an important partnership to have, because that really is where all things kind of begin and end is with the budget,” Hathaway said.

FCW recently reported that Howard Schmidt, Obama’s newly minted cyber czar, said he’s encouraged that federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra see his position as an enabler to information technology innovation, not as a roadblock.

“I think if you pick your partnerships and your alliances wisely, you’ll be able to get a lot of things done,” Hathaway said of the cyber coordinator, a position that she said she likes to view as the quarterback for harnessing the government’s capabilities