Plunkett joins Mercury board, O'Brien appointed board chairman

Mercury Systems announced today Debora Plunkett, former director of information assurance at the National Security Agency, was elected to the company's board of directors.

Additionally, Mercury announced Chairman of the Board Vincent Vitto has retired from the board effective today, and current director William O'Brien has been appointed as the new chairman.

Plunkett has her own consulting business and is a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center and an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at the University of Maryland, according to a Mercury Systems statement. She also served on the National Security Council during the Clinton and Bush administrations where she developed national cybersecurity policies and programs. Plunkett also serves on the boards of CACI International, Nationwide Insurance and BlueVoyant.

Vitto, the former president and CEO of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory and former vice chairman of the Defense Science Board, joined the Mercury board in 2006. He was elected board chairman in 2010.

O'Brien, former chairman of Enterasys Networks, has served on Mercury's board since 2008. He spent more than 30 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers.