Caitlin Durkovich

In May 2012, President Obama appointed Ms. Caitlin A. Durkovich Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection (IP). In her role, she leads the Department’s efforts to strengthen public-private partnerships and coordinate programs to protect the Nation’s critical infrastructure, assess and mitigate risk, build resilience, and strengthen incident response and recovery.

Ms. Durkovich has advanced the mission to secure and ensure the resiliency of the Nation’s infrastructure through a number of milestones and accomplishments since her appointment. She helped lead the implementation of Executive Order (EO) 13636 Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity and Presidential Policy Directive (PPD)-21 Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, leveraging linkages between physical and cyber and focusing on the increasingly complex and interdependent nature of infrastructure. She directed the national effort to update and revise the National Infrastructure Protection Plan in 2013, focusing on the value of partnerships in building a unity of effort to achieve critical infrastructure security and resilience. In 2014, she helped usher through a multi-year reauthorization of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program stabilizing and solidifying the program which identifies and regulates high-risk chemical facilities. In addition to her role in advancing progress in CFATS, she also serves as a co-chair for the implementation of Executive Order 13650: Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security.

Ms. Durkovich was also appointed to serve as a co-chair for the Space Weather Operations, Research and Mitigation (SWORM) Task Force in 2014 by the National Science and Technology Council. The Task Force was established to direct the development of a National Space Weather Strategy to articulate high-level strategic goals for enhancing national preparedness to space weather events.

She has taken on a leading role in establishing a community-based program on Countering Violent Extremism with DHS and has also led in the deployment of the IP Gateway as a centralized interface for integrated infrastructure protection data, tools, and risk management functions. Her priorities include the need for agile planning and response to the dynamic risk landscape that includes climate change and aging infrastructure as well as terrorism, extreme weather, and other risks.

Previously, Ms. Durkovich served as the National Protection and Programs Directorate’s Chief of Staff, overseeing day-to-day management of the Directorate, as well as development of internal policy and strategic planning focused on integrating the physical- cyber nexus.

Ms. Durkovich has more than 16 years of homeland security-related expertise covering a wide range of activities, including continuity of operations (COOP) and business continuity, cybersecurity, pandemic planning, security and policy standards development, strategic management, leadership, institutional transformation, and communications.

From 2003 to 2006, Ms. Durkovich was an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she supported and led transformative, interagency, and enterprise-wide projects throughout the Federal Executive Branch, including drafting and coordinating Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Continuity Directorate’s Pandemic Influenza Continuity of Operations Plan. She helped lead the realignment of the Internal Revenue Service’s security apparatus and provided subject matter expertise to organizations developing pandemic plans, including the United States Courts, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and various Fortune 500 companies.

Prior to joining Booz Allen, Ms. Durkovich worked with former Oklahoma Congressman Dave McCurdy to launch the Internet Security Alliance, a joint project of the Electronics Industries Alliance and the Computer Emergency Response Center at Carnegie Mellon University. She worked closely with such industry leaders as VISA USA, Sony, Raytheon, and Intuit to develop the first voluntary information security practices for the private sector.

From 1998 to 2001, Ms. Durkovich was a Vice President at iDEFENSE, an information security firm dedicated to providing early warning intelligence on infrastructure and IT threats and vulnerabilities. She has also held several positions at A2S2 Digital Projects, Policy.com, the Democratic Leadership Council, and WTVD News Channel 11.

Ms. Durkovich was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She graduated from Duke University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in public policy studies from the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. She earned a Certificate in Business Strategy in 2003 from The Aspen Institute. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Simon Rosenberg, and their three children.