William McCormick
Executive Mosaic is happy to announce that Paul Smith, senior vice president and general manager of Red Hat’s public sector business, has been selected to join the 2019 edition of the Wash100 — Executive Mosaic’s annual selection of the most influential voices in the government contracting arena — for his efforts to accelerate hybrid cloud platforms and other technology to help federal agencies and grow the cyber workforce. This marks his third Wash100 win.
In October, IBM agreed to acquire Red Hat for $34B to create a global hybrid cloud provider for companies to access open cloud platforms. The collaboration between the two companies should accelerate the adoption of hybrid multi-cloud platforms, advance data and application security across cloud environments and build up new partnerships with major cloud providers. Smith will oversee the strategic planning, consulting, sales and marketing efforts in the government market.
Before the merger came to pass, Red Hat received its Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for its Enterprise Linux 7.5 operating system in November.
The FIPS 140-2 hopes to deliver “secure computing for the operating system and layered infrastructure levels,” said Smith. “Regardless of technological advances, protecting sensitive information remains a top priority for every government entity, from executive agencies to state-level organizations,” he added.
Red Hat outlined an “open organization” approach to help the government and military develop their cyber workforce by building on mission outcome and performance in November. The model focuses on transparency, prioritization and collaboration of knowledge and ability to better engages individuals and drive efforts to accomplish shared goals.
Paul Smith brings over 30 years of experience marketing key technologies to the government marketplace holding numerous management positions in software solutions and systems integrators. In 2005, Smith joined Red Hat and is responsible for sales, marketing, consulting and strategic planning for the company’s government business unit in the North American public sector.
Prior to joining Red Hat, Smith was vice president of Government Operations at Veritas for five years. Before he joined the latter, Smith also worked for Netscape Communication where he led sales for the company’s state and local organization nationwide. He also served in a handful of managerial roles for Exxon Office Systems, Unisys and the Oracle Corporation between 1981 and 1997 before joining Netscape.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Paul Smith and Red Hat for receiving this award.
About The Wash100
This year represents our sixth annual Wash100 award selection. The Wash100 is the premier group of private and public sector leaders selected by Executive Mosaic’s organizational and editorial leadership as the most influential leaders in the GovCon sector. These leaders demonstrate skills in leadership, innovation, achievement, and vision.
Visit the Wash100 website, where viewers can submit 10 votes for the executives of consequence they believe will have the most significant impact in 2019.
