Manuel “Manny” Medrano serves as Director of the Office of Cyber Testing Monitoring and Response at the Department of State’s Security Operations Center, incident response program, and vulnerability assessment teams.

Mr. Medrano has over 20 years of experience and started with Department of State in 2011, working for the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science and Democracy Human Rights and Labor as the Information Systems Security Officer. Mr. Medrano later supported several technology modernization efforts in the Secretary of State’s office.

As Deputy Division Chief, and later Acting Division Chief, for Cyber Threat Intelligence, Mr. Medrano was integral to Diplomatic Security’s pursuit of actionable, outcome-based intelligence and partnering with private sector industry. While serving as the Cybersecurity Lead for the Cloud Program Management Office in 2021, Mr. Medrano created an agile security program to modernize IT across the enterprise. In 2022 he contributed to establishing a cyber cohort among the Department’s international Five Eye partners.

Mr. Medrano has served in his current role since 2022 and is responsible for the defense of the Department of State’s networks and systems against advanced and persistent cyber threats. Cyber response analysts provide expert incident response and design, engineer and operate the Department’s cybersecurity defense systems.

Prior to his work at State Department, he worked for the World Bank Group and spent time in Afghanistan as an NGO working for an irrigation project. He is also an Adjunct Faculty for Northern Virginia Community College and a group fitness instructor.