A Mission to Defeat the Bad Guys Drives This Career Navy Veteran

When you operate in a sensitive, mission-critical environment, your cybersecurity can’t be treated like a checklist or point-in-time exercise. It has to be operational. Resilient. Continuous. And aligned to the realities of the mission.

Nobody understands that better than Ar-Raheem Ellis.

As Senior Program Manager of Strategic Accounts for SteelCloud, Raheem brings 25 years of Navy IT experience to his job. His last post was as the Operations Branch Chief of the Fleet Cyber Command Office of Compliance and Assessments.

In other words, Raheem was the guy who oversaw cybersecurity compliance for the Navy. Nobody knows the realities of the mission better.

From humble beginnings to unparalleled expertise in Navy cybersecurity.

Raheem rose through the Navy ranks, first serving in systems administration, then working in local network management, then highly classified wide area networks supporting secure communications operations across the Pacific.

As his expertise grew, so did his leadership roles. Raheem later served as an Information Systems Security Manager (ISSM) supporting over 3000 customers and, after being selected as a Chief Warrant Officer, as a principal cybersecurity advisor to commanding officers. In his final post, he managed cybersecurity compliance and assessments for the entire Navy. While earning his Masters in Cybersecurity and Information Services, Raheem even took classes in ethical hacking.

The sum of all that experience gives Raheem a unique view of cybersecurity compliance from the perspectives of the technicians, management, inspectors and even the hackers. Now, as Program Manager at SteelCloud, he’s ensuring the Navy and other mission-critical users have successful platform implementations, know how to effectively use the ConfigOS platform and are able to operationalize the solution effectively for continuous readiness.

It is rare to find an expert with such a deep, holistic understanding of mission, needs, solutions and, most importantly, execution.  Raheem’s take on cybersecurity and automation comes from being both a customer and a solutions specialist.

The biggest challenge cybersecurity organizations face.

Having lived the operational realities facing DoD organizations: manual STIG implementation, inconsistent configurations, limited manpower, competing priorities, and the pressure of maintaining mission readiness while meeting evolving compliance requirements, Raheem has a firm grasp of the challenges organizations face.

“A lot of organizations I’ve worked with developed plans. They had the policies in place. They had the standards and procedures. But what they lacked was the execution,” he says.

Raheem goes on to explain that “execution” can encompass a number of things. It can refer to personnel or tools. It can be the level of knowledge of the employees or the level of understanding from management. And SteelCloud helps with the execution piece that is so often missing.

“From the platform perspective, SteelCloud offers customers a viable way of managing CIS Benchmarks and STIGs, configurations, reporting requirements and compliance at scale. From the automation perspective, ConfigOS can decrease manpower needs exponentially so that effort can be redirected to further solidify the integrity of the organization from a security perspective.”

In many ways, working at SteelCloud is a full circle move for Raheem. He believes one of the biggest opportunities for modernization across the DoD is reducing the enormous amount of manual effort still tied to compliance management. But there is also a need for everyone to speak the same language.

“Being on this side of the fence, I am better able to bridge that language barrier so both parties are heard and understood.”

A new take on the mission that has driven a 25-year career.

Shifting from a career in the military to one in the private sector is a big leap. After evaluating several opportunities, Raheem chose SteelCloud for a number of reasons. Initially, it was about fit, the feel of the community and the comfort level of the interactions. But Raheem’s resolve deepened when he saw demos of the solution.

“ConfigOS sang to me,” he says. “I’ve devoted a lot of hours to STIG compliance. And when I saw how it worked as a unified solution, it was a platform I wish I had. There’s no doubt in my mind that it is something the Navy needs. It’s a solution that will pay dividends.’”

SteelCloud gave Raheem something every recently retired veteran needs: a new and worthy mission. And it’s an extension of the same mission he was on in the Navy, dating back to Biden-era Executive Orders he resonated with about hardening systems against adversarial attack.

“The ability to automate, sustain secure configurations and simplify compliance management is a fundamental shift in how organizations approach cybersecurity,” he notes. “The threat is very real. Our national information is at risk. Our water, power and utilities are at risk. My mission has always been to make sure those things are not easily accessible.”

Strong values (and a drive to defeat bad guys) form the foundation of everything Raheem does.

Outside the office, Raheem focuses on nurturing family life with his wife, daughter and son. “I love being a dad,” he says, beaming with pride. “Nothing is more important than being a good parent.”

Both of his elementary-aged children compete in jujitsu, which hints toward a hobby Raheem thinks might surprise his coworkers.

“I love Kung Fu movies. The size of my digital library is a bit shameful,” he confesses. “My favorite is Five Deadly Venoms,” a 1978 classic in which the sixth and final disciple of a dying martial arts master is told to find the master’s five former disciples, each specializing in a unique style of kung fu, and defeat any among them who have turned evil.

Whether Raheem is talking about family, leadership or cybersecurity, the same values consistently shine through: commitment, discipline and service.

Those principles defined his Navy career and now shape the way he supports SteelCloud customers as they navigate today’s cybersecurity challenges.

“My focus at SteelCloud is the same as it was when I was in uniform,” Raheem says. “I’m keen on delivering outcomes and providing recommendations, not for the sake of providing recommendations, but to ensure solutions are practical, scalable and aligned with real-world operational and mission-critical needs.”