Jean Schaffer brings over 33 years of experience in government leadership, spear-heading cybersecurity and IT operation initiatives across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and National Security sectors. Most recently, she served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Conceiving and promoting the Secure DoDIIS initiative, she advanced numerous IT security efforts across DIA’s global enterprise and underscored the need for a JWICS Modernization Program, gaining the support of Director of National Intelligence, Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence, and combatant commands.
Building on this, she partnered with the other Intelligence community CISO’s in developing the IC Strategic Plan for Improving Cybersecurity (I-Plan). Dual-hatted as the Chief of Enterprise Operations and Cybersecurity, she was responsible for managing, operating, and executing funds for DIA’s enterprise IT services, including JWICS, DoDIIS, DCNDC (DoDIIS Computer Network Defense Center) and the IC’s DeskTop Environment (DTE).
Prior to DIA, Ms. Schaffer was employed for 30 years at the National Security Agency. She held numerous Senior Leadership roles in the cybersecurity and signals intelligence mission areas. She led the mitigation efforts for vastly improving NSA’s insider threat detection and deterrence for the Collection and Computer Networks Operations mission area addressing identified threat vectors. She managed the global network infrastructure supporting NSA/CSS’s tactical, enterprise, business, and mission systems. She was the Authorizing Official for NSA/CSS, balancing the operational and economic costs of IT protective measures against the requirements for mission accomplishment. She was the Director of the National Information Assurance Partnership/Common Criteria Evaluation Validation Schema.
Ms. Schaffer earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Louisiana State University in Computer Science (1986), a Master of Science degree from the Johns Hopkins Applied Research Laboratory in Computer Science (1991), and a second Master of Science degree in Resourcing the National Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University (2005). She is also a graduate of the NSA Senior Leadership Development Program.