US Cyber Command is getting a new No. 3

Morgan Adamski, who has been leading the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, will be the next executive director of U.S. Cyber Command, according to a May 3 announcement.

The position is the No. 3 spot at Cybercom and is typically held by an NSA official on loan to the command, which is co-located with the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland, and shares a leader.

Adamski comes to the role at a pivotal time for Cybercom, in which after developments that have been years in the making, it has officially gained service-like authorities that will allow it greater oversight of its forces that are provided by the services and the capabilities it needs to conduct cyber operations. The organization will be directly overseeing a budget of roughly $3 billion.

She will take over as executive director early next month.

Adamski is currently the director of the Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, an unclassified facility outside NSA’s gates that’s designed to bolster the security of the defense industrial base, help maintain the United States’ global edge in AI and ensure malicious foreign actors can’t pilfer American AI capabilities.

In her new position, Adamski will help lead strategic initiatives to advance Cybercom’s capabilities, talent management and partnerships. Her appointment with her long pedigree in the cybersecurity field underscores the importance of digital security in safeguarding national interests, the command said.

“Over the past four years, I’ve been honored to serve as the Director of the NSA Cybersecurity Collaboration Center. The CCC has changed the narrative on U.S. intelligence sharing with the private sector. We created and proved operational collaboration not once, but thousands of times,” Adamski said in a LinkedIn post. “Our success was simple—partnerships and people. Partners who took a chance on us and the CCC workforce who wanted to do more. This has been one of the most amazing and rewarding jobs of my career.”

She will take over for Holly Baroody, who will head back to the NSA, though it is not immediately clear what role she will take on at the agency.

Baroody has served as executive director of Cybercom since at least late 2022, having previously been the deputy for the Cyber National Mission Force, Cybercom’s sub-unified headquarters that includes its most elite digital warriors charged with defending the nation from significant threats.

“I’m so proud to have led many of our strategic efforts, from helping establish Cyber Command’s first ever Artificial Intelligence Task Force to drive rapid adoption of AI solutions; to strengthening the partnership with DARPA through our Constellation partnership that enables us to overcome the cyber S&T valley of death and bring in the state of the art technologies to our operations; to strategically advancing Cyber Command’s Joint Cyber Weapons Architecture to ensure our cyber warriors have the best capabilities available to them,” she said in a LinkedIn post.