Vaughan Emery, Founder of both CENTRI and Atonomi, will focus on strategic initiatives to help build Atonomi into a global leader in device identity and trust

Atonomi, the blockchain-based arm of leading IoT security provider CENTRI Technology, has announced the appointment of seasoned technology and business leader Robert “Rob” Strickland to the role of CEO for both companies. Strickland, who has also served as the longest member of the Board of Directors, brings more than 30 years of experience in driving innovation and growth of top companies, and will be responsible for the vision, strategic direction, planning, and execution for both companies. Founder and former CEO Vaughan Emery will focus on building global partnerships and user communities to drive the vision of Atonomi as the leading provider of device identity and trust. Emery will remain an active member of the Board of Directors and pivot into a new strategic advisory evangelist role, remaining a member of the company.

Founder Vaughan Emery said: “Now is the right time to ask long-time colleague and the longest serving member of our Board of Directors to join the executive team and help build the company into a global leader in cybersecurity technologies focused on the Internet of Things. Atonomi is building out its identity and trust platform and driving global adoption of the technology across enterprise. Rob’s collective experience makes him the best possible choice to ensure that we remain on this astronomical trajectory, and I am excited to have him join the executive team and help drive the future of Atonomi. At this point of the company’s transition, Rob will now lead the combination of our two corporate entities that will drive our products into the emerging market opportunities.

“Furthermore, I’m pleased to be transitioning to a role where, alongside Rob, I can evangelize the Atonomi Network in the community, provide strategic and technical advice, and help to build on the successes of the token offering,” added Emery.

Most recently, Strickland led technology strategy for numerous companies as CTO, including Neustar and Grupo Televisa (Mexico City). He provided executive leadership as President/COO to Text+, an emerging communications company in the MVNO market. Strickland also advises several other blockchain companies, including Tesspay.io and KeyDok. He has held a number of high-profile C-level roles in leading technology companies including Chief Technical Officer of Leap Wireless/Cricket Communications, which was sold to AT&T in 2014. Strickland also served as Senior Vice President and CIO at T-Mobile USA from 2006-2010, as well as CIO for Echostar/Dish Network, Senior VP and CIO of Continental Cablevision, and CTO for Landmark Communications (former owner of the Weather Channel). He has also held a number of business positions at Apple, Harvard Business School, Stratus Computers, Honeywell International, and several venture capital-backed startups across the United States.

His most recent startup, M37 Ventures, Inc., is a coalition of executive leaders, industry experts, and entrepreneurs who help global organizations understand and harness the power of technology to propel their businesses and brands today and into the future. Under his leadership, Strickland and several expert consultants serviced top industry brands Hortonworks, SAP, Neustar, Sumo Logic, CR-X (Australia), CallGate (S. Korea), WeDo Technologies (Portugal), Tata Consultancy Services, Clickfox, Razorsight, Xavient, Convene, and Lightspeed, among others.

Strickland is a Board Director at Rady Children’s Hospital Board of Trustees IT Task Force, CENTRI Technology, Text+, and Ocearch. In addition, he serves on several customer advisory boards including Afiniti, Neustar, SAP – Independent Executive Advisory Board, WeFi, and Clickfox.

CEO Robert Strickland said: “It’s with great pride that I accept the lead role at CENTRI and Atonomi; the latter becoming internationally recognized as a pioneer in the blockchain and IoT space. Under the direction of Vaughan Emery, Atonomi has made tremendous strides toward achieving its mission to reimagine the future of identity and trust for the IoT. I am confident that my decades of experience leading top brands have well equipped me to propel Atonomi to the next level of success, and I look forward to driving our product delivery, partnerships, and customer adoption of the Atonomi Network.”

About Atonomi:

Atonomi is the creator of the Atonomi Identity Registry Network. The Atonomi Network is designed to provide device identity and reputation services to enable secure IoT interoperability. Through the application of blockchain technology, Atonomi aims to make it possible for IoT solutions to build upon the Network and rely on device identity and reputation for secure IoT transactions. Atonomi’s parent company, CENTRI Technology, is a leading provider of IoT data security for resource-constrained devices.

About CENTRI:

CENTRI provides advanced data security for the Internet of Things. Our flexible, software-only product provides IoT professionals, developers and device makers with the means to quickly get to market with purpose-built IoT security, protecting data from creation to consumption.

CENTRI enables you to mitigate today’s data communication risks in a standards-based network infrastructure with heavyweight industry standard encryption and compression, packed into a lightweight small footprint ideal for low-power IoT endpoint devices.