Marianne Bailey joined Guidehouse in October 2019, bringing to the role three decades of experience protecting the nation’s critical security systems, including as deputy national manager for U.S. national security systems at the National Security Agency.
While leading the NSA cybersecurity program, Bailey drove the largest cybersecurity and cryptographic modernization program in the last two decades to secure the nation’s future digital environment.
Through an extensive awareness campaign, she garnered resources, strengthened government and industry partnerships and delivered a plan. Through these efforts, Bailey laid the foundation for and began the development and implementation of innovative capabilities which protect the nation’s most critical networks, enabling over 4 million secure communications capabilities globally including secure mobile solutions, weapons systems, diplomatic communications, state-of the-art satellites and protection of the national nuclear armament.
Bailey outlined significant strategic outcomes that amounted to an investment of over $1 billion to the topline budget — the largest increase ever to that mission set. The investment will fuel cryptographic defenses, significantly scale the cyber workforce and augment the tools and infrastructure that prevent and eradicate global cyber conflict.
Bailey was also a major driving force behind NSA establishing the new Cybersecurity Directorate.
After quickly realizing the current operating structure wasn’t going to be supportive of taking NSA into the future cyber world, she championed an executive review of the current state of operations to include development of a detailed Responsibilities, Accountability, Consult and Inform activity. Over the course of a year, she met with dozens of customers and industry partners and reported findings to leadership, which resulted in a tiger team effort and ultimately a major restructure to meet the nation’s cyber challenges.
The impact of the effort she spearheaded will be seen for decades to come.
While Bailey’s government career has resulted in cornerstone efforts that have set the stage for cybersecurity since the 1990s — including her work at NSA, the Defense Department and the intelligence community — she brings that same strategic leadership to her clients at Guidehouse as cybersecurity leader.
Bailey is teaching executive leaders how to prevent, prepare, respond and recover from a cyber breach before they are faced with handling an actual incident. This includes legal, reputational, communications and overall security posture beyond the specific weakness that led to the breach.
She’s also developing a comprehensive federal program for high-value asset identification and protection to ensure federal clients understand the impact on their business of possible cyberattacks and how to defend against them.
Bailey is also providing critical identity and access management support from strategy and architecture to implementation across varying technologies ensures Guidehouse clients have a solid foundation for their cybersecurity programs.
Why Watch:
In 2020, Bailey’s primary focus will be on the firm’s people — Guidehouse’s No. 1 asset. She says she believes Guidehouse has built a strong brand and has the right culture, helping the firm to develop its people while attracting top talent. And as a learning organization, Guidehouse is ambitious and innovative, with strong partnerships with industry and clients.
Guidehouse is also focused on working with agencies, as most have a jumble of cybersecurity components that don’t work together, with stove-piped products that are not fully operationalized. In partnering to deliver an effective cybersecurity program, Guidehouse will work with them to identify a comprehensive plan that involves not only policies, processes and education but also integrating disparate technical disciplines such as cloud, digital modernization, mobility, analytics, threat monitoring, automated patching and remediation.
And in leading Guidehouse’s cybersecurity practice, Bailey helps the firm drive strong cybersecurity disciplines and programs to increase the security posture of Guidehouse’s federal government and commercial clients.