CGA Team
Jake Braun,
Chief Executive Officer
Jake Braun is CGA’s Chief Executive Officer and the Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Initiative at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.
He recently served in the White House as acting Principal Deputy National Cyber Director. Before that role, Mr. Braun was appointed by the President as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Braun is the author of Democracy in Danger: How Hackers and Activists Exposed Fatal Flaws in the Election System (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
While at the White House, Mr. Braun oversaw the implementation of the National Cybersecurity Strategy, including efforts to secure our water systems, modernize the federal cyber workforce, enhance cyber cooperation with allied nations, and develop AI cybersecurity policy. During his most recent tour at DHS, he advised on multiple cross-cutting cybersecurity initiatives. He also helped spearhead the first DHS-wide counter-fentanyl strategy and worked on the National Security Council team that developed the first U.S. government-wide counter-fentanyl strategy. He also helped lead the effort to resettle nearly 150,000 Afghan allies during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In 2009, Mr. Braun was appointed by President Obama as White House Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. He was instrumental in the effort to pass the largest data-sharing agreement in history between the United States and the European Union in the European Parliament. In addition, Mr. Braun designed and implemented a program to modernize the DHS cybersecurity workforce and supported efforts to expand US-CERT, the NCCIC, and CDM. Before his tenure as White House Liaison, Mr. Braun served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Obama Administration as Deputy Director for the National Security Agencies Review.
In addition to his role at the University of Chicago, Mr. Braun co-founded the DEF CON Voting Machine Hacking Village. In that capacity, he co-authored two award-winning reports on the cybersecurity of our election infrastructure: the DEF CON 25 and 26 Voting Village Reports. Most recently, he partnered with DEF CON to launch “Franklin,” a program to memorialize the most innovative and impactful findings from DEF CON in the annual “Hackers’ Almanack.” “Franklin” also recruits cyber volunteers to support underresourced critical infrastructure.
Mr. Braun began his career in politics and journalism. He has worked on five presidential campaigns and, separately, as a journalist for newspapers in Illinois and Taiwan. He holds an MA in International Relations from Troy State University, an MA in Education from National-Louis University, Chicago, and a BA in Philosophy from Loyola University of Chicago.