Melissa Hathaway

Early Life and Education

Melissa Hathaway was born on November 10, 1968. She earned a B.A. from The American University and later graduated from the U.S. Armed Forces Staff College with a special certificate in Information Operations.

Early Career

Hathaway began her professional career at Evidence Based Research, a consulting firm, where her work included developing models for detecting cocaine movement into the United States. From June 1993 to February 2007, she worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the country's leading defense and intelligence consulting firms. There she focused on information operations and long-range strategy and policy support, contributing to evaluations of new force options across the electromagnetic spectrum and to the design and development of novel techniques for mapping social, business, process, and infrastructure relationships.

Government Service

Hathaway transitioned to government service as Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, also serving as Cyber Coordination Executive. In that capacity she chaired the National Cyber Study Group (NCSG), through which she contributed to the development of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) under President George W. Bush. In January 2008, she was appointed Director of the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force.

On February 9, 2009, Hathaway was named Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils under the incoming Obama administration. At the request of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, she was asked to lead a 60-Day Cyberspace Policy Review, assembling a team of experienced government cyber experts and identifying over 250 recommendations. In May 2009, President Obama publicly presented the resulting blueprint and acknowledged Hathaway's leadership, emphasizing the need for collaboration across academia, industry, and government to build a trusted and resilient communications and information infrastructure.

Hathaway departed the White House on August 21, 2009, citing frustration over not having been selected for the newly created position of cyber coordinator. In her own words, she was "not empowered right now to continue to drive the change."

Post-Government Work

From October 1, 2009 through the project's conclusion in 2015, Hathaway served as a senior adviser to Project MINERVA at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. She also served as a lead instructor for the executive program Cybersecurity: The Intersection of Policy and Technology.

Hathaway is the founder and president of Hathaway Global Strategies LLC, her own consulting firm. She has served as an advisor to companies including Cisco and was one of thirty commissioners for the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

Affiliations and Recognition

Hathaway holds several prominent institutional affiliations. She is a Senior Fellow and member of the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada, and a non-resident Research Fellow at the Kosciuszko Institute in Poland. Her career spans more than two decades of work at the intersection of national security, technology policy, and international governance.