Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary
Kristie Canegallo was designated as the Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security in July 2023, and is now Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary. In that role, she is the Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Government’s third largest agency and is responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations and advancing mission and organizational priorities. From January 2022 to July 2023, she served as the Department’s Chief of Staff.
Prior to joining DHS, Canegallo was Google’s Vice President of Trust & Safety from 2018-2021, where she led the global team that developed and enforced Google’s product policies to keep people safe while using Google products.
From 2005 through 2017, Canegallo served in a range of domestic policy, national security, and management roles in the Bush and Obama-Biden Administrations, concluding as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Implementation from 2014-2017. As Deputy Chief of Staff, she directed the execution of some of the U.S. Government’s most complex issues; her areas of focus included the Affordable Care Act and health care, immigration, and cybersecurity. From 2008-2012, Canegallo served on the National Security Council staff as Director for Defense Policy and later Senior Advisor to the Deputy National Security Advisor. Prior to that, she worked at the Department of Defense as a civilian, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Canegallo holds a M.A. from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. from Colgate University and was born in Springfield, MA.