Nancy Rainosek

Nancy is the former Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Texas. She has over four decades of IT experience in Texas state government and the private sector. Additionally, she served on the Executive Committee of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Nancy has been recognized on many occasions both at the state and national levels, including the prestigious Thomas M Jarrett State Cybersecurity Leadership Award from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, for her tremendous contributions. She was also a SANS Institute Difference Maker in 2021 for her work with the National Cyber Scholarship program to support the entry of talented students to the cybersecurity industry. In 2020, Nancy was named as one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers. Nancy took a leadership role in the state’s successful response to the 2019 ransomware attack that affected 23 local government entities in Texas. Prior to joining DIR, she served as the deputy Chief Information Security Officer for the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. There, she was responsible for building a state-of-the-art security operations center.  Nancy received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with honors with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Texas State University.