 professionals, individuals with disabilities, LGBTQI+ individuals, Tribal nations, and members of rural and other underserved communities.32 To create inclusive work environments where effective mentoring is likely to occur, organizations also need to establish diverse representation within senior levels of leadership and management. The underrepresentation of key demographic groups is most striking when it comes to Women make up 49% of the nation’s workforce and only 26% of the cyber women, who make up 49% of the nation’s workforce. workforce but only 26% of those in the cyber 33 workforce. Studies also continue to reveal challenges in inclusion and career progression for women in cyber careers, with negative implications for retention.34 Due to lack of granularity in the data available on other portions of the population, tech occupation data is used here instead.35 Black Americans make up 12% of the workforce but only 8% of those in tech occupations, while Hispanic Americans comprise 16% of the workforce but only 8% of those in tech occupations.36 There appears to be similar underrepresentation of rural workers in tech occupations.37 People with disabilities, who are underrepresented in the workforce in general, have untapped potential to enter the cyber workforce.38 For example, there are initiatives to increase the participation of persons with neurodiversity-related attributes in the cyber workforce.39 Until we draw more talent from groups underrepresented in the cyber workforce, we will not meet the demand for more cybersecurity-trained capacity. A F OUNDATION FOR P ROGRESS Earlier efforts to strengthen our cyber workforce inform and provide a starting point for the development of this strategy. Key milestones include the creation of the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) program in 1998, the start of the Cyber Corps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program in 2000, the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative in 2008, and the creation of NICE40 in 2010, followed by three NICE Strategic Plans, with the most recent published in 2021.41 This strategy relies on the NICE Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework) which enables entities across the public and private sectors to use a common lexicon to describe work done by those who need specific knowledge and skills to perform cybersecurity-related tasks and manage risks to the enterprise.42 In addition, the Department of Defense (DoD) leveraged the NICE Framework to create the DoD Cyber Workforce Framework to meets its needs.43 Legislative achievements and policy precedents also provide a strong foundation for progress. Important laws include the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 and the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Assessment Act of 2015. Policy foundations include: the “Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Strategy” in 2016; Executive Order (EO) 13800, “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure,” in 2017 and its mandated report to the President, NATIONAL CYBER WORKFORCE AND EDUCATION STRATEGY 6