WASHINGTON ― U.S. President Joe Biden plans to nominate Laura Taylor-Kale, an Obama administration trade official, as the Pentagon’s industrial policy chief, the White House announced Friday.
Taylor-Kale, if confirmed by the Senate as assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, would step into the role as the industry is facing supply chain and workforce challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She has been an innovation, workforce and industrial policy scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations since 2017. Taylor-Kale previously served as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and as senior adviser for policy and operations at the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.
The Pentagon’s industrial policy office was reorganized last month to improve oversight of the defense industrial base, Defense One was first to report. The Pentagon added one new deputy assistant secretary for industrial base resilience and another to focus on industrial base development and international engagement.
Deborah Rosenblum, assistant defense secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, has been performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy.
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.
