Senior Exercise Planner - Regional Exercise Lead

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Leidos is seeking a Senior Exercise Planner to serve as a Regional Exercise Lead for the CISA National Cyber Exercise Program (NCEP), including leading all exercise design, development, planning, conduct, and evaluation as required for their assigned region. This role leads exercise support teams – comprised of Junior to Senior Exercise Specialists – across their assigned region that develop and execute multiple, concurrent exercises for CISA stakeholders across the country.

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Leidos’ Homeland Sector’s Airports, Borders, and Security (ABS) business area delivers air travel modernization, border protection, and critical infrastructure security solutions that help build a safer, more resilient homeland. Operating globally across aviation security, passenger screening, cybersecurity, and border and port security, ABS integrates next-generation technologies—including AI-driven analytics, advanced threat detection, and command-and-control platforms—to secure the movement of people and goods worldwide by improving situational awareness, accelerating decisions, and strengthening operational outcomes for customers.

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Senior Exercise Planner/Regional Exercise Lead

Primary Responsibilities Include:

• Lead all exercise design, development, conduct, and evaluation as required for the exercises in their assigned region.

• Participate in initial meetings with leadership, CISA, and exercise stakeholders to determine scope, team requirements, resources, schedule, etc., for each exercise in their assigned region.

• Support PM and DPM/IM in identifying and allocating appropriate personnel and resources to each exercise support team for each exercise in their region, based on type, size, complexity.

• Identify roles in each exercise support team and staff to assume those roles for the lifetime of the exercise cycle, including a lead for meetings, documentation, content development, etc.

• Lead coordination of planning meetings (as appropriate), such as C&O, IPM, MPM, MSEL Meeting, and FPM, and all supporting documentation, including agendas, presentations, and notes. Work with identified team lead for this role.

• Lead coordination for the development of core exercise documentation and artifacts (e.g., CONOPS, EXPLAN, SITMAN, MSEL, COSIN, evaluation forms, invitations/sign-in sheets). Work with identified team lead for this role.

• Focus on managing multiple concurrent exercises across their assigned region.

• Communicate and coordinate with other Regional Exercise Leads and PM/DPM to ensure appropriate resource allocation and deconflict schedules.

• Maintain communications with regular meetings with exercise stakeholders in their region.

• Report regularly to management based on communications plan.

• Establish own battle rhythm for meetings and coordination/communications with regional exercise teams.

• Fill in as a SME and Exercise Facilitator if necessary.

• Support development of new CISA Tabletop Exercise Packages (CTEPs) and maintenance of the CTEP scenario library.

• Provide SME input to internal training activities to improve facilitation and planning skills across NCEP staff.

Required Experience, Skills, and Education:

• Ability to obtain CISA EOD.

• 10+ years experience in HSEEP exercise design, development, conduct, and evaluation.

• 8+ years experience in exercise management or leadership, including managing multiple exercises, exercise teams, schedules, and concurrent execution.

• FEMA HSEEP certification required or ability to complete HSEEP certification within 30 days of contract start .

• Demonstrated experience planning and delivering exercises or exercise-like events that require structured documentation, coordination, and post-event reporting.

• Strong writing skills to develop polished exercise materials and documents (such as EXPLANs, SITMANs, MSELs, and controller/observer instructions) and post-exercise products (including AAR drafting support).

• Demonstrated ability to lead high-level meetings, exercise facilitation, and give customer-facing presentations.

• Demonstrated ability to manage time, meet deadlines and milestones, and hold team members accountable to requirements.

• Ability to meet CISA suitability and the clearance requirement applicable to the assigned role (TS/SCI for designated personnel; otherwise Public Trust fitness type), as described in the SOW.

Preferred Experience, Skills, and Education:

• TS/SCI security clearance

• FEMA Master Exercise Practitioner (MEP)

• Experience supporting cybersecurity-focused scenarios and stakeholder engagement across government and private sector partners.

• Experience contributing to strategic plan maintenance and innovation projects in support of leadership requests.

• Cybersecurity Certifications

  • CISSP

  • CEH

  • GIAC

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

September 3, 2026

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range:

Pay Range $82,550.00 - $149,225.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.