Bill Conner


F. William "Bill" Conner is an American business executive.

Education and personal life

Conner was born and reared in West Helena, Arkansas. In his early years, he displayed "an interest in energy conversion". In 1981, he received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in mechanical engineering and later earned an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1987. Currently, he lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife.

Career

From 1981 to 1992, Conner held positions at AT&T including senior engineer, operations manager and strategic planner.
Conner held executive positions at Nortel Networks from 1992 to 2001. As the President of Enterprise Data Networks for Nortel, he managed its $9.1 billion acquisition of Bay Networks. He also served as the first Chief Marketing Officer of Nortel, launching the global marketing campaigns "Come Together" and "What Do You Want the Internet to Be?"

Entrust

From 2001 to 2013, Conner was the Chief Executive Officer and President of Entrust, a private software company that specializes in identity-based security. Conner was responsible for the creation and delivery of identity-based security software and services. Entrust grew to profitability and reached annual sales of well over $100m by the time of arrival of Conner to the firm in 2001. Conner shortly thereafter launched a restructuring effort and began to trim workforce annually in an effort to return the company to profitability. He launched a new business model focusing on product portfolios targeted to key verticals and geographies.
Conner engineered the company's acquisition by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in 2009, and transitioned Entrust into a private firm. In December 2013, it was announced that Datacard Group had entered into an agreement to purchase Entrust for a reported $500 Million. Conner took on a consultant role during the transition.

Silent Circle

On January 5, 2015, Silent Circle announced that its Board of Directors appointed Conner as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. As CEO of Silent Circle, Conner also joined the Board of Directors of Blackphone. On June 17, 2016, Silent Circle blogged that Conner had resigned as CEO and would remain only as an "advisor," implying he had also resigned his seat on the Board.

SonicWall

Formerly a division of Dell Software Inc., SonicWall was spun off and acquired by Francisco Partners and Elliott Management in June 2016. On Nov. 1, 2016, SonicWall announced that it had commenced standalone operations, and named Conner its President and CEO.
SonicWall states it is the North American market share leader in internet security appliances among small and medium-sized enterprises. In August 2016, SonicWall launched its Capture Advanced Threat Prevention Service, and has analyzed more than 4 million suspicious files for its clients as of Nov. 1, 2016. The cloud-based service uses multiple engines to help prevent attacks, and automates remediation techniques.
Conner stated publicly that SonicWall will continue its relationship with Dell, as a reseller partner, and will continue its service areas focused on network security, secure mobile access, email security and encryption, and management and reporting. In a public statement to employees, Conner stated he wants to focus SonicWall on four areas of growth:
In September, 2018 at a SonicWall Channel Partner conference, Conner outlined the rapid growth in non-standard port threats, and explained a business reorganization to serve both the SME and enterprise business markets focusing on the enterprise verticals of retail, education and government.

Comodo CA (now Sectigo)

In October 2017, Francisco Partners acquired Comodo Certification Authority and named Bill Conner Chairman of the Board. This marks a transition in ownership from the Comodo organization as Comodo CA, an industry leader in SSL security with more than 200,000 customers across 150 countries, focuses on the significant market opportunity associated with SSL certificates and the massive growth in online and IoT traffic. In November 2018, Comodo CA rebranded itself as Sectigo, to avoid confusion with its former parent entity Comodo Group.

Cybersecurity and infrastructure global trends

Conner has been active in various public-private partnerships on cybersecurity, cybertheft and infrastructure security. He helped unveil the INTERPOL Global Smart eID Card and addressed the United Nations on global challenges in cybercrime in June 2010 He co-chaired the Corporate Governance Task Force of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Cybersecurity Partnership He has been a member of the Business Software Alliance and the Cyber Security Industry Alliance He created and co-chaired the Information Security Governance Task Force of the Business Software Alliance He is a member of the Enterprise Software Roundtable
In a September 2018 article on Cybersecurity Trends, Conner describes innovative next-generation security techniques in the cloud and the deep web. The article references RTDMI, a new patent-pending technology created by SonicWall.
In February 2018, Former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Bill Conner collaborated on an . In it, they detail some of the recent actions taken by the U.S. Congress and the SEC regarding cyber accountability and transparency.
In 2017, Conner became a Forbes Community Voice Contributor, as a member of the . His articles have featured topics such as , , and how . He has also penned articles and contributed to reports on and .
In February 2012, Conner took part in a United States House of Representatives committee on Energy and Commerce hearing to discuss cybersecurity threats facing the US and the role of public-private partnerships play in defense. Conner has recently spent time discussing the effects of spear phishing schemes on weak authentication, notably the rash of attacks on media outlets, and the risks of insider threats.

Recent Publications

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