The National Cyber Security Centre – a part of GCHQ – has announced that Lindy Cameron will become its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Cameron will lead the UK’s principal technical authority on cybersecurity. Her role will include overseeing the organization’s response to hundreds of cyber incidents each year, improving the cyber resilience of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, identifying the risks and opportunities for the UK in emerging technologies and leading the NCSC’s ongoing response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Lindy Cameron joins the NCSC with over two decades’ experience in national security policy and crisis management. She is currently number two at the Northern Ireland Office and was previously the Director-General responsible for the Department for International Development’s programs in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with a budget of £4bn a year and over thirty country offices. She was appointed CB in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List for her services to international development.

She started her career in the private sector with McKinsey and has served across government at home and overseas, including in Baghdad and Kabul with DFID and in Helmand for the Foreign Office. She was in the Cabinet Office during the 2008 financial crisis and is a graduate of the Ministry of Defence’s Royal College of Defence Studies.

Lindy Cameron said: “Over the past four years, the NCSC has transformed the UK’s approach to cybersecurity and set a benchmark for other countries to follow. I am delighted to join the NCSC and relish the opportunity to take this world-leading organisation to the next level.”

The position of Chief Executive Officer of the NCSC is a Director-General level appointment within GCHQ and reports directly to Director, Jeremy Fleming. Jeremy Fleming, Director, GCHQ, said:“I am excited to welcome Lindy to the NCSC and GCHQ. She joins at a time when cybersecurity has never been more essential to the nation’s resilience and prosperity. Lindy’s unique blend of experience in Government, overseas and in security and policy issues make her the ideal leader to take NCSC into the next stage of its delivery.”

Lindy Cameron will formally become CEO in October following a handover period with her predecessor, Ciaran Martin. Ciaran Martin, who was appointed as the GCHQ board member for cybersecurity in December 2013 and set up the NCSC in 2016, will remain CEO until 31 August 2020.