Kevin Keaton

Kevin Keaton is the CISO & CIO at Red Cell and a Founding Partner at the firm. Prior to his role at Red Cell, he served as the first Chief of Innovation for the National Security Agency. In that capacity, Mr. Keaton was responsible for enhancing NSA’s innovation culture, reducing risk, and increasing agility across NSA’s missions, with a specific focus on workforce engagement and outside-in innovation.

Mr. Keaton began his federal career in the US Army Signal Corp. He was part of NSA for over 30 years. He held various Technical Leadership roles in the Signals Intelligence mission and led significant breakthroughs in intelligence sharing and SIGINT coalition support to combat operations. As an organizational leader, he ran NSA’s Computer Sciences Research where he led the creation of innovative solutions in big data, analytics, and Human Language Technology to help NSA accomplish its varied missions. He also led the SIGINT discovery mission across the NSA’s world-wide enterprise to improve access to relevant foreign intelligence information.

Mr. Keaton is a computer scientist. He received the Dr. Louis Tordella award for the most successful GCHQ/NSA joint project. He was a finalist for the 2013 Presidential Rank Award and received a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award in 2015. He also received NSA’s highest civilian award, the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal.

Mr. Keaton holds a BS from the University of Maryland and a MS in Business with emphasis in IT Management from Johns Hopkins University.