PQShield expands boardroom, accelerating momentum into 2025

• PQShield, the leading cybersecurity company developing post-quantum cryptography, has appointed Antonio J. Viana to its board of directors, alongside adding Mike Muller, Rose Schooler and Ian Drew to its strategic advisory board.
• Janssen Liston also progresses to Vice President of Sales globally, having driven significant growth for PQShield in North America.
• The appointments follow PQShield's $37M Series B funding earlier in 2024, and the recent release of NIST's finalized PQC standards, which is helping to fuel global demand for PQShield's quantum-proof technology.

LONDON, Dec. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PQShield, the leading provider of post-quantum cryptography (PQC), has announced Antonio J. Viana (BrainChip, Arteris, Parsley, former Arm executive) is joining the board as Non-Executive Director, alongside three new additions to its 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 PQShield's boardroom overall supports its aims for global commercial growth in 2025 and beyond, following a $37M Series B earlier this year.

PQShield has expanded rapidly as demand for its quantum-ready cryptographic solutions has risen globally. In August 2024, the publication of NIST's final standards for post-quantum cryptography - all three of which were co-authored by the team at PQShield - fired the starting gun on the global transition to PQC, with regulators already issuing guidance and timelines for industries to complete the process. The NSA has mandated that all owners and operators of National Security Systems and related assets adopt PQC for software and firmware signing by 2025, and NIST has committed to deprecating existing schemes like RSA and ECC from 2030, ahead of a global backstop for the adoption of PQC by 2035.

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, PQShield raised a $37M Series B to expand operations as it supports this growing global demand for PQC.

The appointees

The expansion of PQShield's boardroom re-affirms its commitment to providing NIST-compliant, real-world PQC solutions across the global technology supply chain, and adds significant experience to the company as it continues to scale commercially.

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 PQShield's expansion in a sector that is crucial to the adoption of PQC, following PQShield's 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 PQShield's recent announcement that it has 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, PQShield has promoted Janssen Liston to Vice President of Global Sales. Having driven significant growth for the company in North America, Liston will now take on an expanded role with responsibility for global sales teams.

Since raising its Series B earlier this year, PQShield has also added partners and customers in other crucial sectors including networking, aerospace, and financial services.

Antonio J. Viana, non-executive director at PQShield, 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 former CMO of 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."

About PQShield:

PQShield is a post-quantum cryptography (PQC) company building the quantum-safe cryptography solutions that are modernizing the vital security systems and components of the global technology supply chain. We deliver real-world, high-quality secure implementations of quantum-safe cryptography in hardware, software and the cloud, as well as being a leading contributor to post-quantum cryptography standardization projects around the world.

Headquartered in the UK, with a 70 strong team across 10 countries, PQShield's contribution has been recognised by Bloomberg, Wired, Fast Company and the World Economic Forum. The company is backed by Addition, Oxford Science Enterprises, Chevron Technology Ventures, Legal & General, Braavos Capital, Kindred Capital, Crane and Innovate UK. Its extensive catalog of technical publications is available here.