President Donald Trump nominated Sean Plankey to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday, the last major piece to fall into place for cybersecurity leadership in his administration.
Plankey served in the first Trump administration, holding a few posts with cyber responsibilities. He was the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response in 2019 and 2020. Before that he was director of cyber policy at the National Security Council, starting in 2018. He also was the chief information officer for the Navy.
He most recently had been at the global cybersecurity advisory company WTW.
He also served in several government positions prior to the first Trump administration. He was a Coast Guard man, rising to the post of deputy division chief. He served in Afghanistan, and worked in Cyber Command.
He was briefly under consideration in 2020 to lead the agency he’s now nominated to be director of, after Trump forced Chris Krebs out of the role. He had long been thought to be Trump’s pick this time around, too.
His nomination will now be moved before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. If confirmed, he would inherit an agency under new pressure in the Trump administration, with some of its responsibilities curtailed and some of its personnel eliminated.
He also would have at least one key deputy, with Karen Evans already in place as executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA.
Among other key members of the Trump cyber team, Sean Cairncross is also awaiting Senate consideration of his nomination for national cyber director. Alexei Bulazel holds the position of director of cyber policy at the NSC.
