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Juliette Kayyem
Harvard Professor, CNN National Security Analyst, Former Assistant Secretary at DHS, Author & Consultant
Juliette Kayyem
Harvard Professor, CNN National Security Analyst, Former Assistant Secretary at DHS, Author & Consultant
Biography
Professor Juliette Kayyem is currently the faculty chair of the Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She also serves as CNN Senior National Security Analyst for CNN where she has been described as CNN’s “go to” for disasters. A contributing writer to The Atlantic, she has a weekly security segment on NPR’s Boston station WGBH. Her most recent book, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters, was described in a New Yorker profile of her as an “engagingly urgent blueprint for rethinking our approach to disaster preparedness and response.”
In government, she most recently served as President Obama’s Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Previously, she was Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Homeland Security Advisor. She is the recipient of many government honors, including the Distinguished Public Service Award, the Coast Guard’s highest medal awarded to a civilian.
Professor Kayyem is the author or editor of six books including the best-selling book Security Mom in 2016, a memoir that explores the intersection, and commonalities, of her life in homeland security and her life as a mother. In 2013, she was named the Pulitzer Prize finalist for editorial columns in the Boston Globe focused on ending the Pentagon’s combat exclusion rule against women, a policy that was changed that year. She won the Telly Award in 2021 for “excellence in a digital series” for her online documentaries on climate change with MyRadar.com.
She is a frequent speaker and advisor to major corporations and associations on national and homeland security, planning for a crisis, cybersecurity and resiliency efforts. From 2020-2022, she served as faculty for a joint effort with Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard University to train mayors and city leaders for pandemic planning. She is a Senior Advisor to Teneo, the global consulting firm, and also serves as a security advisor and consultant to several Fortune 500 companies and startups. She was named Inc. Magazine’s top 100 Female Founders in 2019 and received the Lifetime Achievement Pinnacle Award from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in 2023.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the mother of three children, she is married to First Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge David Barron.
Speaker Videos
Juliette Kayyem Interview - The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters
Juliette Kayyem's Hot Takes on AT&T Outage, A.I., and Security
Juliette Kayyem on CNN
Juliette Kayyem, crisis management expert, to be honored with Pinnacle Lifetime Achievement Award
Juliette Kayyem on how we can prepare for the next disaster
Juliette Kayyem — The Devil Never Sleeps - with Susan B. Glasser - at Conn Ave
Think Bad, Do Good: Preparing for disaster and achieving cybersecurity readiness
Juliette Kayyem and Gretchen Rubin: The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters
Juliette Kayyem - The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters 2
What Resiliency Means
Taking Charge of Our Own Safety
The COVID Crisis and Global Security: A Conversation with Juliette Kayyem
Speech Topics
Get Ready: The Runway is Short
Leaders don’t need to be reminded that the world is unpredictable or that crises can strike without warning. But what truly defines a crisis? It’s the short runway - where time is limited, and decisive action is critical. Rather than dwelling on what could go wrong, Juliette Kayyem shifts the focus to proven strategies for preparation and resilience. Drawing on her extensive expertise in crisis and disaster management, she explains that while we can’t prevent every disaster, we can prepare for the crash landing. With a clear and actionable playbook, Kayyem equips leaders with the tools to face uncertainty with confidence and readiness.
The World We Inherit: The Risk Environment Today
As our times unequivocally make clear, companies today face an ever-expanding and highly volatile risk landscape that demands more attention from its leaders. The first weeks of 2025 alone -- terror in New Orleans, fires in Los Angeles -- are proof of the ongoing threats we face. From AI to armed conflicts, from disinformation to climate disasters, executive attention will have to balance persisting global conflicts and risks with growth and innovation. Leadership isn’t only about responding to a problem, but anticipating and preparing for the pressures and disruptions that will surely arise.
As a leading international security academic, corporate advisor, author and commentator, Kayyem presents the major geopolitical trends that every executive should know, the demands those place on leadership, and how best to navigate in a time when crisis is often the norm. Juliette Kayyem will make a world sometimes without explanation accessible to leaders who have a role in anticipating and mitigating those challenges, and turning them into new opportunities.
The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to ‘Fail Safer’
Professor Kayyem, CNN’s on-air Senior National Security Analyst, has been described as the network’s “go to” in an emergency. Her landmark book, THE DEVIL NEVER SLEEPS: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters, is described in a New Yorker profile of her as an “engagingly urgent blueprint for rethinking our approach to disaster preparedness and response.” Her efforts on how to “fail safer” has been written of as the “Kayyem paradigm” and applied in both the public and private sectors.
What does it mean to “fail safer”? There is no such thing as crisis leadership, only leaders who find themselves in a crisis. Kayyem embraces the challenge of our poly-crisis world and provides tactical and manageable advice to public, corporate, non profit and academic leaders. What questions should they be asking of their teams? Are they satisfied with their own “situational awareness” about events? Does their institution’s security architecture – who does what and when – make sense to them now? What will they want to say, and to whom, when people look to them for answers? To master a disaster, a leader needs to ask these, and other questions, before an event because people will inevitably ask after: why weren’t you ready?
In this accessible book discussion, filled with personal and sometimes even humorous anecdotes of her efforts in crisis management, Kayyem draws on her 20 plus years in government, academia, the private sector, and the media as a disaster expert. Audiences will feel empowered to, as Kayyem puts it, “assert agency over things we feel powerless against.”
Women Leading in Crisis
Women executives are constantly inundated with advice about how to be better, feel better, lead better. Girl Boss. Lean In. Power Pose. The reality is, however, that none of these efforts speak to the female leaders who now run so much of our society and who will be called upon to guide us through a crisis. One of today’s challenges for female executives is how to ensure a safe and secure work environment for employees, stakeholders and customers. And female leaders cannot simply delegate to the “former FBI guy” who runs their security efforts.
Safety and security is often seen as a man’s job, and the data is clear: women barely make a dent as Chief Security Officer’s and still only 15% of cyber-security leads are women at Fortune 500 Companies. Professor Kayyem has lived and thrived in the security world and knows female leaders will be judged by their ability to guide and communicate in a crisis. They are also given very little leeway to succeed. She knows women have to own it because the results are compelling: effective female leaders are often more trusted and successful during a crisis.
In this speech, drawing on her professional career with some anecdotes from her best selling book Security Mom describing the connections between securing the homeland and her home, Professor Kayyem will engage female executives to understand their responsibilities, guide their capabilities, and empower their confidence.
School & University Safety
Schools, colleges and universities are supposed to be safe havens for children and young adults. But, as we have seen time and again, the world invades these spaces, impacting students, teachers, parents, administrators and education leaders. Professor Kayyem has worked with K-12 programs, colleges and universities and serves as a frequent advisor to education leaders about how best to balance the sometimes conflicting needs of open minds (and spaces) with safety. From active shooters to global conflicts, Kayyem reflects on the threat environment and how institutions and leaders can best prepare to manage through these difficult challenges.
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