Guidehouse adds former NSA exec Bailey

Guidehouse said Monday it has added former National Security Agency executive Marianne Bailey to the company’s executive team as cybersecurity practice leader.

Bailey joins the management consulting firm as it pushes to have roughly equal footings across government and highly-regulated commercial markets.

Last year, Guidehouse spun out from its former parent PriceWaterhouseCoopers to be a standalone consulting firm focused on the U.S. public sector with some presence in certain commercial customers.

Then in August of this year, Guidehouse announced its planned acquisition of Navigant Consulting to add more of that commercial footing in areas such as energy, financial services and health care. Navigant does not have some public sector customers, which makes it almost a mirror image of Guidehouse. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Bailey most recently was deputy national manager for national security systems at NSA, a role that saw her essentially act as lead cybersecurity adviser for systems deemed critical for military and intelligence activities.

Prior to that, the three-decade government services veteran was principal director for cybersecurity in the Defense Department’s office of the chief information officer. She was chosen for a 2018 FCW Federal 100 award in recognition of her leadership of a cybersecurity architecture review for DOD.