Cryptography Expert Atsushi Yamada Named CEO; Former U.S. National Security Council Senior Director and Technology Veteran, Amit Mital, Named Executive Chairman
WATERLOO, ON, May 10, 2023 — ISARA, the leader in post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and cryptographic risk management, today announced two executive leadership appointments that will expand and support the company’s strategic direction. Atsushi Yamada was named chief executive officer and Amit Mital was named executive chairman of the company. Both bring significant cryptographic and technological leadership experience in enterprise and government, as ISARA expands its focus to include post-quantum cryptography professional services.
"At ISARA, we pride ourselves on being integral to building a quantum-safe world. With our combined experience in cryptography and cryptographic risk management, we are readying information technology ecosystems for the future," stated Atsushi Yamada, CEO of ISARA. "We are excited to welcome Amit Mital as executive chairman. His extensive knowledge and experience make a powerful addition to our team, and we look forward to working together to evolve our product and service offerings to meet PQC and cryptographic risk management needs."
Executives Bring Vision, Strategic Guidance, Technical Expertise
Atsushi Yamada has been with ISARA since 2015, where he has led the company’s world-class quantum-safe technologies research and development teams as managing director and vice president, research, and development. With a career steeped in cryptography and cybersecurity, Yamada was previously a cryptographer at BlackBerry and senior security architect at Certicom. Yamada holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Waterloo and a master’s degree and bachelor’s degree in engineering in applied mathematics and physics from Kyoto University.
Prior to joining ISARA, Amit Mital served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director, National Security Council, the White House. He focused on strategy and policy for Cyber Security and Emerging Technologies including Critical Infrastructure security, Telecom policy, Spectrum policy and 5G strategy, Quantum Computing, and AI. Mital has held leadership roles as CEO and founder of Kernel Labs, chief technology officer at Symantec Corporation, and corporate vice president at Microsoft Corporation. As a strategist with deep experience in innovative technologies, Mital holds 43 patents. He earned a master’s degree in engineering from Dartmouth College.
"ISARA has an excellent crypto-agile technology foundation and I look forward to taking the company to a new level and helping organizations manage their quantum-safe journeys every step of the way," said Amit Mital, executive chairman of ISARA.
Quantum-Safe Migration for Enterprises and Government Agencies
A smooth transition to post-quantum cryptography is critical. In fact, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act into law to prioritize the switch to post-quantum computing within a year of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issuing its PQC standards. Subsequently, in the White House’s National Security Memorandum 10 (NSM-10), the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) offered guidance to government agencies around protecting systems in the executive branch and implementing the NIST-approved cryptographic algorithms.
ISARA recently announced that it made its hybrid certificate patents available to the public to help ease the path to quantum-safe security for all organizations. A hybrid certificate is a traditional X.509 digital certificate with quantum-safe components encoded within it, to provide organizations with backward compatibility with their systems and applications during the transition to quantum-safe cryptography.
About ISARA
ISARA’s mission is to build a quantum-safe world. Founded in 2015, ISARA specializes in cryptographic risk management and crypto-agile and quantum-safe security solutions and services for today’s information technology ecosystems. We work with enterprises and government agencies to future-proof mission-critical systems and achieve quantum-safe and Zero Trust goals. For more information about ISARA, visit https://www.isara.com.
ISARA Media Contact: +1-877-319-8576, media@isara.com.