Mark McLaughlin

Mark McLaughlin was appointed as VeriSign's CEO in August, 2009, Inc. Prior to that, Mark McLaughlin was VeriSign's President and Chief Operating Officer. He held that post since January of 2009. When he became CEO he also retained his title as President and became a member of the Board of Directors. He replaced the company's founder, Jim Bidzos, when assuming the position.

Country:	USA

Positions and Achievements at VeriSign

Mr. McLaughlin has an extensive and successful career history within VeriSign, this includes time running a number of important divisions and involvement in historical developments for the company. He constantly advanced within the company, from 2000 to 2007, ultimately serving as executive vice president of products and marketing. That role saw Mark developing VeriSign's strategy to focus the company on its primary infrastructure services, while divesting several non-core businesses.

Previously, Mark McLaughlin ran the company's Naming Services business; he was responsible for the immensely important and historic negotiations that awarded the company the management of the .com and .net registries; he was also responsible for strategic partnerships with Industry leaders such as eBay and Microsoft.

Not only does the Naming and Directory Services Business Unit run the .com and .net system, it also provides powerful platforms to businesses to support their applications across disparate networks and devices.

Prior to joining the Naming and Directory Services business unit, Mr. McLaughlin was vice president of Corporate Business Development for VeriSign. In this role, Mr. McLaughlin lead VeriSign corporate wide business-development efforts and was responsible for strategic VeriSign agreements and relationships with IBM, Microsoft, FDC, Inuit, eBay, Sun Microsystems and other leading technology companies.

Before that, Mr. McLaughlin was the general manager of the VeriSign Payment Services Business Unit, leading the VeriSign Internet payment business.

Career History

Mr. McLaughlin started off his career as an army officer, flying Cobra helicopters. He was in for a career as a military officer until an accident changed his life, and led him to take up law.

Prior to VeriSign, Mr. McLaughlin was the vice president of sales and business development for Signio, a leading Internet payment company, and was instrumental in the negotiation and acquisition of Signio by VeriSign in 1999.

Prior to joining Signio, Mr. McLaughlin was the vice president of business development for Gemplus, the world’s leading smart-card company. In this role, Mr. McLaughlin was responsible for Gemplus business development and legal affairs and negotiated and closed many strategic alliances and business deals for the company both in the Americas, Asia, and in Europe.

Prior to joining Gemplus, Mr. McLaughlin was the general counsel of Caere Corporation, the word’s leading OCR software company. Before joining Caere, Mr. McLaughlin practiced law with Cooley Godward, a leading high technology law firm in Silicon Valley, in the firm’s Information and Technology Licensing Group.

Education

Mark McLaughlin received his J.D., Magna cum Laude, from Seattle University School of Law and his B.S. Degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Honors

Army Commendation Medal and Airborne Wings.

Family

Mr. McLaughlin lives in Leesburg, Virginia with his two children and wife, whom he met and got to know when he was in the US air force as a pilot. His wife also served in the US air force as a pilot.