About the Speaker
Melissa Hathaway is a leading expert in cyberspace policy and cybersecurity and consults governments, global organizations, and Fortune 500 companies on cybersecurity, enterprise risk management, and technology assessments. She is globally recognized as a thought leader in this field and has spent the last decade developing relationships with the highest levels of governments and international institutions — advising UN, NATO, the ITU, the OAS, and other key institutions and governments. She teaches at universities around the world and has distinguished affiliations with Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and Technology, the Center for Asymmetric Threats Studies — National Defense College, Sweden, the Digital Science Institute — European School of Management and Technology, Germany, and the CyberLaw Research Program at Hebrew University in Israel. She also leads research initiatives at the following internationally recognized think tanks: the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in the United States; the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada, and the Kosciuszko Institute in Poland.
Ms. Hathaway served in two Presidential administrations where she spearheaded the Cyberspace Policy Review for President Barak Obama and led the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative for President George W. Bush. She built a broad coalition from within the Executive Branch for two Presidents, developing a cybersecurity strategy covering unprecedented scope and scale that will now facilitate revolutionary improvements for the United States to secure and defend its critical national infrastructures. She received the National Intelligence Reform Medal, September 2009 and the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation, December 2011 for her leadership.
Ms. Hathaway has a B.A. degree from The American University in Washington, D.C. She has completed graduate studies in international economics and technology transfer policy, and is a graduate of the US Armed Forces Staff College, with a special certificate in Information Operations.
