experts
Bob Kolasky
Nonresident Scholar, Technology and International Affairs Program

about


Bob Kolasky is senior vice president for critical infrastructure at Exiger, where he focuses on developing cutting-edge third-party risk management solutions for the critical infrastructure community.  In this role, Mr. Kolasky leads market strategy for addressing third-party and supply chain risk in critical infrastructure and bringing to bear analysis to support enhanced business and government operations.   

Mr. Kolasky also serves as the chair of the High-Level Risk Forum for the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD HLRF) and a member of the editorial board and columnist for Homeland Security Today.

Mr. Kolasky joined Exiger after fifteen years as a senior leader in the federal government, where he was responsible for foundational work in national security risk management, including the development of the National Critical Functions risk framework and the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.

He was the founding director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) National Risk Management Center (NRMC) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As one of CISA’s assistant directors, he oversaw efforts to facilitate a strategic, cross-sector government and industry risk management approach to cyber and supply chain threats to critical infrastructure, including elections systems.  As head of the National Risk Management Center, Mr. Kolasky had the responsibility to develop integrated analytic capability to assess risk to critical infrastructure and work across the national community to reduce risk. In that role, he co-chaired the Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force and led CISA’s efforts to support the development of a secure 5G network.  He also co-chaired the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council.  

Mr. Kolasky has served in a number of other senior leadership roles for DHS, including acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary for infrastructure protection.  He served as the director of the DHS Cyber Physical Critical Infrastructure Integrated Task Force to implement Presidential Policy Directive 21 on critical infrastructure security and resilience, as well as Executive Order 13636 on critical infrastructure cybersecurity. 

Earlier in his career, Bob was a management consultant, a journalist, and an entrepreneur. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1994 and from the Harvard Kennedy School with a master’s in public policy and a concentration on business and government policy and microeconomics in 2002.

areas of expertise
education
MA, Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School , BA, Dartmouth College
languages
English

All work from Bob Kolasky

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2 Results
In The Media
in the media
What the AT&T Outage Reveals

The news Thursday morning of the AT&T service outage — affecting tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of customers — was yet another reminder of the importance of critical infrastructure resilience.

· February 23, 2024
CNN Opinion
paper
Cloud Reassurance: A Framework to Enhance Resilience and Trust

As increasing amounts of information and services are moved to the cloud, a few providers have come to manage the bulk of cloud services. This level of dependence and concentration offers some benefits and risks, but policy action is needed to minimize and manage the risks.