Robert Wood is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS). He leads enterprise cyber security, compliance, privacy, and counter
intelligence functions at CMS and ensures the Agency complies with secure IT requirements
while encouraging innovation.
Mr. Wood has over 10 years of experience in information technology, information security and
management consulting.
As information technology has grown more complex with the advent of innovative technologies
that enable rapid collection, storage and distribution of vast amounts of information and data, so
too has the importance of safeguarding the privacy of health and other sensitive information
collected by CMS. Our Agency is entrusted with the health information of over 100 million
Americans, and it is our fundamental responsibility as stewards of this information to ensure its
confidentiality is protected. Robert leads CMS's efforts to ensure we meet the standards of
excellence demanded by that stewardship responsibility, and protect it from bad actors both
foreign and domestic.
Prior to CMS, Mr. Wood has built and managed several security programs in the technology
sector. He was also formerly a Principal Consultant for Cigital where he advised enterprises
about their software security programs. He also founded and led the red team assessment practice
with Cigital, focused on holistic adversarial analysis, helping organizations identify and manage
risks from alternative perspectives.
Mr. Wood has a B.S. in Information Management & Technology from Syracuse University.