Kemba Walden
Golden Gov: Federal Executive of the Year
After an eight-month stint as the first-ever principal deputy national cyber director, Kemba Walden was called to the White House in February to take on the position of acting national cyber director in the Office of the National Cyber Director. She hit the ground running in her new role, leading the development of the National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy, overseeing the implementation of President Joe Biden’s executive order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity and contributing to the drafting and release of the National Cybersecurity Strategy. Walden, who spent nearly a decade as an attorney at the Department of Homeland Security, returned to the federal government in 2022 after three-plus years at Microsoft, finishing her time there as assistant general counsel in the company’s digital crimes unit.
