Qualys Inc., which provides cloud-based security and compliance solutions, has tapped cloud technology sales veteran Bill Solms to lead its federal government IT sales division.
Solms, who brings 30 years of experience, will be vice president and general manager of Qualys’s federal division, and will help drive government IT initiatives including marketing the Qualys Cloud Platform to help agencies maintain visibility and control of their complex networks and secure their digital transformations.
Qualys CEO Philippe Courtot said the hire leaves the company “extremely well positioned to address the needs of the federal market.”
“With our FedRAMP-certified Cloud Platform and integrated suite of security and compliance solutions, we can provide government agencies with a comprehensive cloud-based approach to secure global IT assets and build security into their digital transformation,” Courtot said. “We welcome Bill, who has developed a unique expertise in the federal sector, to our federal division to help agencies streamline their security and compliance initiatives as they transition to the cloud.”
Solms is a military veteran who has held several government-focused security roles in the private sector, most recently as CEO and co-founder of WildRock Security Group.
“As the public sector increasingly adopts cloud technologies and federal agencies continue embarking on their digital transformation efforts, security must be delivered at a scale that current enterprise point solutions fail to address, and are too expensive to deploy and manage,” Solms said. “I am very excited to join Qualys to help lead its efforts and expansion in the federal space.”
Before co-founding WildRock, Solms was CEO of Wave Systems Corp., a publicly traded cybersecurity company, and before that, served as the director of the U.S. federal sales team for Oracle On Demand. Solms has also served as a sales executive at Microsoft, focused on customers in the top level of the Defense Department. In the military, Solms was a paratrooper and Apache helicopter pilot before becoming a strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a combat veteran and a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.