A Sabbath-observant graduate of the Bais Yaakov school system has just become one of the highest-ranking women in the U.S. Department of Defense.
Anne Neuberger has just been appointed to head the new Cybersecurity Directorate being created at the U.S. National Security Agency, it was announced Tuesday. Neuberger helped establish the U.S. Cyber Command, having been with the NSA for nearly a decade.
The Cybersecurity Directorate is described on the NSA website as “a major organization that unifies NSA’s foreign intelligence and cyber defense missions and is charged with preventing and eradicating threats to National Security Systems and the Defense Industrial Base.”
Neuberger, the website says, reports “directly to General [Paul M.] Nakasone” — a four-star general who commands the U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency and is the chief of the Central Security Service. Her previous positions were described as “NSA’s first Chief Risk Officer, Deputy Director of Operations, and Lead of NSA’s Russia Small Group.“
She is currently the Senior Adviser to the Director of the NSA.
Neuberger has led the NSA’s Election Security effort and served as Deputy Director of NSA’s Operations Directorate, leading NSA’s foreign intelligence and cybersecurity operations.
In addition to her other positions, Neuberger previously served as the Director of NSA’s Commercial Solutions Center, responsible for NSA’s partnerships with the private sector, as the Navy’s Deputy Chief Management Officer and as a White House Fellow, working for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Prior to joining government service, Neuberger was Senior Vice President of Operations at American Stock Transfer & Trust Company (AST), where she directed operations, including dividend distributions and complex M&A processing for approximately 2,000 publicly traded companies.
Academically, she earned an MBA, Beta Gamma Sigma, and a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University, and also graduated from Touro College, summa cum laude.
Neuberger has lectured on cybersecurity, risk, surveillance/civil liberties and national security as a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Stanford University and Columbia University.
The new NSA cybersecurity chief told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that her unit “will more actively use signals intelligence gleaned from expanded operations against adversaries.”
Anne (Chani) Neuberger was raised in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn and attended Bais Yaakov of Boro Park. She lives in Baltimore.
As she takes up her new position, Neuberger is about to become one of the highest-ranking women in the department since 1980.
Trivia fact: Neuberger’s parents, Rivki and Mendel Yitzhak (George), were on the Air France flight that was hijacked to Entebbe in 1976. Despite their American citizenship, they were kept with the Israeli hostages because of her father’s kipa. They were rescued by the IDF and brought to Israel.