The Center for Internet Security (CIS) has announced that its president and CEO, William Pelgrin, will be retiring on May 31.
Jane Holl Lute, former Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will replace him as CEO, while Brig. Gen. Steven J. Spano (ret.) has been named president and COO for the non-profit organization.
Lute has had a career as an officer in the United States Army, as a Special Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and at DHS. She served on the National Security Council supporting both President George Bush and President Obama, and she most recently served as president and CEO for the Council on CyberSecurity, a nonprofit organization that integrated with CIS in January 2015.
Spano meanwhile brings three decades of leadership experience with the United States Air Force to the table, where he led IT policy and operations organizations in command assignments across the globe. He has held a number of joint assignments as well, including at the National Security Agency. For the past five years, Spano has served as the general manager for defense and national security for the Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector.
Pelgrin’s career spanned nearly four decades and has been largely dedicated to advancing the state of cybersecurity across the world, including five years at the helm of CIS. His key focus has been threat intelligence and information-sharing.
He spent part of his career as New York State’s first CISO, where his collaborative management approach was the impetus behind the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), which he established in 2003 to provide a central resource for state and local governments to share information between and among members in order to detect, defend against and respond to cyber threats. The MS-ISAC now includes members from all 50 states, hundreds of local governments and several US territories and tribal entities.
“William Pelgrin’s outstanding vision and commitment have elevated CIS on the national and international stages as a trusted leader in cybersecurity, and he has positioned CIS to be responsive to the ever-changing security threat landscape,” said John Gilligan, chair of the CIS board of directors, in a statement. “I am pleased that Will has agreed to remain with CIS as a board member. CIS is in very capable hands under the new leadership of Jane Lute, who has a tremendous reputation and track record of success that will be put to work for our collective benefit.”