Michelle McGuinness

Lieutenant General Michelle Irene McGuinness, is a senior officer in the Australian Army. She joined the army via the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in 1994 and was commissioned into the Australian Army Intelligence Corps on graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1997. She has served as commanding officer/chief instructor at ADFA (2014–15), Assistant Military Attaché to the United States (2015–17), Director General Counterproliferation and Terrorism (2019–21), and deputy director for Commonwealth Integration in the United States Defense Intelligence Agency (2021–24). McGuinness was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed National Cyber Security Coordinator in February 2024.

Military career McGuinness entered the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) as an Australian Army officer cadet in 1994. She graduated from ADFA with a Bachelor of Arts in politics and Bahasa Indonesian in 1996 and, following further training at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, was commissioned into the Australian Army Intelligence Corps in 1997. Her early career included leading and managing human intelligence, interrogation, and exploitation intelligence operations, and deployments to East Timor and the Solomon Islands. In 2005, McGuinness was posted to Washington, D.C. as an intelligence capability liaison officer for the Defence Intelligence Organisation and, in 2006, she was seconded to the United States Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) as an integrated intelligence officer. Her work with the JIEDDO directly supported operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and she was twice awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for her work with United States forces.

McGuinness returned to ADFA as the operations officer in 2008 and, the following year, graduated from the Australian Command and Staff College with a Master of Arts in strategy and policy. Following postings to Australian Army Headquarters, McGuinness was appointed commanding officer/chief instructor at ADFA in 2014 and then Assistant Military Attaché in Washington, D.C. in December 2015. Later that year, she graduated with a Master of International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and, on her return to Australia, was appointed chief of staff to the Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell. The position had been created, under the Department of Home Affairs, in 2023 to oversee Australia's cyber security policy and to coordinate the Australian government's strategic response to cyber security threats.