GlobalSign® Corporate Information

Security Provider GlobalSign Appoints New Management Team

GlobalSign worldwide relaunch brings together the management team and staff from companies formally trading as GeoTrust Europe, RapidSSL.com, and GeoTrust Japan.

Portsmouth, NH- 08 August , 2007 – GlobalSign (www.globalsign.com), one of the longest established Certification Authorities (CA) and specialists in SSL security, today announced a wholly new Management Team as part of its major worldwide re-launch campaign.  The team includes a number of industry veterans previously responsible for launching or operating SSL divisions of nearly all the major Certification Authorities, and represents the first time that such worldwide experience has been brought together to focus on a single Certification Authority.

The opportunity to bring together this calibre of skill set and experience was instigated by the acquisition of US based GeoTrust Inc by VeriSign in September 2006. The acquisition did not include the GMO Internet Inc (GMO) owned companies trading as GeoTrust Europe, RapidSSL.com and GeoTrust Japan and as a result, the management teams, (as well as the sales, support and engineering staff) were no longer associated with the GeoTrust brand. 

In October 2006, this team set about acquiring GlobalSign, a competing Certification Authority to VeriSign, its technology, customer base and credible name, and bringing it into the GMO set of companies.  This experienced team now has a newly refocused, re-launched and rebranded organization, with innovative world leading technology and all the staff and technical infrastructure required to refocus the GlobalSign organization. 

Together with the original GlobalSign staff, the new management team brought with it a host of SSL industry veterans, sales, support and engineering staff with experience spanning all the main players in SSL and digital certificate technology, including a combined experience of managing over 4,000 SSL resellers.  The new management team is made up of:

• Ichiro Chujo – Group CEO
• CEO Geotrust Japan
• Paul Tourret – Managing Director EMEA
• Co-founder & Managing Director GeoTrust Europe, RapidSSL
• Managing Director Comodo
• Johan Sys – CEO North America
• Director of Managed Identities, CyberTrust / General Manager GlobalSign NV
• Steve Waite – Corporate Marketing, EMEA & North America
• Co-Founder & Marketing Director GeoTrust Europe, Rapid SSL
• Head of Marketing Comodo
• Henry Krumins – Sales Director, EMEA & North America
• Sales Director GeoTrust Europe
• Sales Director Comodo
• Michiari Kanno – Group CFO
• CFO GeoTrust Japan
• Steve Roylance – Business Development Director, EMEA & North America
• Business Development Director, GeoTrust Europe
• Director of Technical marketing Comodo

 “The new management team’s understanding of the market coupled with their strength in developing successful business with their respective experiences made them the ideal fit to take the GlobalSign offerings and market position to the next level.” states Masatoshi Kumagai, CEO GMO Internet Inc. “With their proven track record of repeated success in the SSL market, the team has already opened new offices around the world, begun rolling out new systems and is working closely with both enterprises and resellers to effectively meet their requirements as the GlobalSign name moves forward with unprecedented pace.”

GlobalSign will be re-launching several enterprise and reseller services over the next few weeks and additional company offices are now open in London, Boston and Tokyo. For further information or to buy products or services, please visit www.globalsign.com

About GMO GlobalSign
Established in 1996 and as a WebTrust accredited public certificate authority, GlobalSign offers publicly trusted SSL Certificates, EV SSL, Managed SSL Services, S/MIME email security and Code Signing for use on all platforms including mobile devices. Its Trusted Root solution uses the widely embedded GlobalSign Root CA certificates to provide immediate PKI trust for Microsoft Certificate Services and internal PKI, eliminating the costs of using untrusted Root Certificates. Its partnership with Adobe to provide Certified Document Services (CDS) enables secure digitally signed PDF documents, certified transcripts and e-invoices.  These core Digital Certificate solutions allow its thousands of authenticated customers to conduct secure online transactions, data transfer, distribution of tamper-proof code, and protection of online identities for secure email and access control.  The company has a history of innovation within the online security industry and has offices in the US, UK, Belgium, Japan, China and Singapore.

GMO Internet Group
GMO Internet Group is one of the most comprehensive providers of industry-leading Internet services worldwide. As well as domain registration, web hosting, ecommerce, and payment processing businesses that each hold the top share in their respective markets in Japan, services operated by the group include Internet advertising, search engine marketing and research. Global online security brand GlobalSign and major Japanese online securities brokerage, GMO CLICK Securities are also group members. In 2011 a new Social Media & Smartphone Platform segment was established bringing together group initiatives in social apps development, flash marketing and Android apps distribution. GMO Internet, Inc. (TSE: 9449) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Please visit www.gmo.jp/en for more information.

For further details please contact:

GlobalSign Australia
Tel: +61 3-9988-3988
pr-apac@globalsign.com