SL Renata Spinks
Cyber Technology Officer, U.S. Marine Corps Cyberspace Command
Ms.
Renata Spinks currently serves as the Acting Senior Information Security
Officer and Cyber Technology Officer (CTO) for the U.S. Marine Corps. In this role, Ms. Spinks leads an extensive
portfolio focused on information technology, policy, investments, cyber
operations (defensive and offensive) as well as organizational leadership for
the Marine Corps Network and Information Enterprise.
She
is no stranger to using technology to revolutionize institutions, moving them
forward innovatively and has earned her reputation as the “game-changer.” She is
an influencer by nature who leads through humility, empowerment, risk
assessment, and data-driven decision making.
Early
in her career, Ms. Spinks served in the US Army 44th MEDCOM 28th
Combat Support Hospital and is a decorated combat veteran. She then attended college as a student-athlete
and embarked on a federal career in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of Acquisition (2008). She led asset management, budget projection
and execution, audit and financial system security. Ms. Spinks’ love for cyber grew when she
served as a criminal research specialist and used computer forensics and human
intelligence to aid investigations focused on human trafficking and child exploitation.
As she continued to accelerate her tenure, she served as Special Assistant to
the Director of IT; Office of Financial Research at the US Treasury and later
joined the Internal Revenue Service to lead web application development as a
Sr. Advisor the Assistant Chief Information Officer.
Since
2018, she has led the USMC mobile and remote workforce operations design and
architecture buildout with cybersecurity as a foundational guide. She works to enable cyber and intel focused compute
and store, collaboration, access control and identity management, data
encryption and governance. She leads
defensive cyber operations for the hybrid cloud environment and champions
setting the conditions to adopt and implement principles of zero trust. She
supports leading the USMC risk management framework modernization efforts and
creates opportunities for emerging technology needed for connected and
degraded/disconnected environments. She creates unprecedented use of processes,
tools, techniques and protocols while driving enablers for proactive network
resiliency and decision making. Ms.
Spinks demonstrates her passion for talent management through partnerships with
industry, colleges, institutions, federal agencies and the National Security
Agency (NSA) Human Resource Directorate.
She
holds a BS in Information Systems, a MS in Technology Management and several
certifications, recommendations and awards.
She is the 2020 Stars and Stripes Becoming Everything You Are (BEYA) SES
of the Year and an avid community service STEMINIST. She is a native of Louisiana, loves New
Orleans Saints football, cooking and as a recognized CIAA Elite Student-Athlete,
still loves to play basketball.