Sarah Cleveland

Colonel Sarah Cleveland, USAF (Ret.), serves as Senior Director of Federal Strategy at ExtraHop Networks and brings more than 30 years of cyber operations, communications, and national security experience spanning military and federal missions.

Throughout her 26-year career in the United States Air Force as a Cyber Operations Officer, Sarah held leadership positions at the Squadron, Group Command, and Joint Directorate levels (J6, G6, and A6), leading communications, cyber operations, and mission-critical infrastructure supporting both garrison and deployed operations in disadvantaged, denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) environments.

Her operational experience includes deployments supporting combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and across the Middle East, as well as training Colombian and Polish Special Operations Forces on communications tactics, techniques, and procedures. In her final Air Force assignment, Sarah led the global NC3 (Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications) sensor network for the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC), overseeing operations, sustainment, continuity planning, and global infrastructure supporting nuclear treaty monitoring and strategic national security missions.

Sarah advises the Department of Defense and Federal agencies on Zero Trust, cyber resilience, network detection and response (NDR), and the modernization of security operations in increasingly contested digital environments. She is a frequent speaker at cybersecurity and defense conferences, including Black Hat and NATO-related cyber defense exercises.