Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden, USAF, Director, National Security Agency, has created a new executive-level Chief Financial Manager (CFM) position and has hired an external financial expert to fill the role. Ms. Beverly Wright has been appointed CFM and Advisor to the Director's Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and assumed those duties on 6 January 2000.

"I am very pleased that Ms. Wright has joined the NSA team. Her 26 years of experience in the financial industry has been marked with exceptional accomplishments," Hayden said. "We are confident Ms. Wright will bring to NSA the best financial practices in industry today."

Ms. Wright earned her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1974 and her BA from Wellesley College in 1970. She held various Syndicated Loan Origination and Investment Banking positions before becoming the Chief Financial Officer of Alex. Brown, Inc. in 1986. When Alex. Brown merged with Bankers Trust, Ms. Wright became Chief Financial Officer of the new firm, BT Alex. Brown, Inc. Her impressive credentials in the investment-banking world were further emphasized in her most recent capacity as Chief Financial Officer of Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc., in Baltimore, MD.

Ms. Wright's arrival to NSA is the result of Lt Gen Hayden's newly implemented "100 days of change." During this initiative, Lt Gen Hayden is instituting changes that will ensure that NSA has the agility and expertise to continue its long tradition of preserving national security for the American people. Challenges to be addressed include: maintaining a strong infrastructure of people and facilities in a time of constrained budgets; accurately forecasting technology trends in the face of an explosion of information systems; and reacting agilely to new technological innovations.

By hiring an expert from the financial industry, Lt Gen Hayden intends to improve the Agency's fiscal budgeting process. "I believe that Ms. Wright will provide the NSA ELT the expertise to implement changes to improve our financial processes," Hayden said. "The long-term result is a strong infrastructure driven by mission and supported by skillful budget decisions."