We are pleased to announce that Antonio J. Viana (BrainChip, Arteris, Parsley, former Arm executive) is joining the board as Non-Executive Director, alongside three new additions to our strategic advisory board to accelerate growth into 2025. The new advisors are Mike Muller (co-founder and former CTO, Arm), Rose Schooler (former CVP, Intel, and current Arm board member), and Ian Drew (former chairman at Foundries.io, and CMO at Arm). The expansion of our boardroom supports our aims for global commercial growth in 2025 and beyond.
The transition to PQC is set to accelerate in 2025, with industry bodies anticipated to release their own guidance for deploying the new cryptographic standards. Meanwhile, critical sectors like networking and semiconductors are already adopting NIST’s standards. In June 2024, after years of working with NIST and advising government agencies in the UK, US, and Europe on the adoption of PQC, we successfully raised a $37M Series B to expand operations as we continue to support this growing global demand for PQC.
The appointees
The new team members – Antonio J. Viana, Mike Muller, Rose Schooler, and Ian Drew – have deep experience in the technology industry, working in sectors that will be critical to the successful global adoption of post-quantum cryptography. Bringing considerable expertise in semiconductors, Viana, Muller, Schooler, and Drew will support our expansion in a sector that is crucial to the adoption of PQC, following our existing advances in protecting hardware from the quantum threat through partnerships with the likes of Microchip Technologies, AMD and Lattice Semiconductor, amongst others.
The appointments also follow our recent announcement that we have developed the world’s first NIST-compliant PQC silicon test chip, enabling it to test the security of PQC hardware to an extremely robust level.
Separately, we have also promoted Janssen Liston to Vice President of Global Sales. Having driven significant growth for the company in North America, Janssen will now take on an expanded role with responsibility for global sales teams.
Antonio J. Viana, non-executive director says: “PQShield has been building a best-in-market solution that many industries will soon realize it needs. Now that NIST’s standards are finalized, PQShield is the company best placed to meet the global demand for PQC. I’m excited to join the board to help PQShield establish itself as the industry-standard post-quantum product over the coming years.”
Mike Muller, founder and former CTO of Arm, said: “PQShield is building a cutting-edge solution for one of the most pressing technical challenges of the next decade, and is already able to scale this solution to protect vectors from microcontrollers all the way to cloud computing. In an emerging industry, it’s exciting to start working with a company that is already completely customer-focused.”
Rose Schooler, board member at Arm and Densify, and Zurn Elkay Water Solutions said: “Over my 35 years in the tech industry, I’ve been fortunate to work with exceptional talent and groundbreaking technology. PQShield stands out with its world-class team and cutting-edge, standards-based solutions designed to address some of the most complex customer challenges. I’m excited to collaborate with the PQShield team to scale its solutions broadly, enabling a seamless cryptographic transition across multiple industries.”
Ian Drew, former chairman at Foundries.io and CMO at Arm, said: “Ali and the team at PQShield have assembled a world leading, British-based tech company that has the potential to make huge strides in cybersecurity and lead the post-quantum cryptography world.”
Ali El Kaafarani, founder and CEO of PQShield, said: “I am delighted to add four industry veterans to the PQShield boardroom. Each brings a wealth of experience in scaling businesses, and joins the company as we enter a pivotal period of growth. I look forward to working with Antonio, Mike, Rose and Ian as we expand PQShield’s commercial footprint in the wake of the new NIST standards.”