Interview with the President and CEO: Wave Systems Corp. (WAVX)

Technology >> CEO Interviews >> September 2, 2014

Bill Solms is the President and CEO of Wave Systems Corp., having been appointed by the board of directors in October 2013. He is the third CEO in the company’s 26-year history, succeeding Steven Sprague. Mr. Solms assumed the role of CEO after serving as the company’s Vice President of North American Sales, where he rapidly restructured the sales team and increased revenues. His more recent private sector experience includes executive positions at the IT consulting firm IntelliDyne and at A-T solutions, where he led a team engaged in a strategic program acquisition in antiterrorist and counter-IED professional services within the U.S. DOD and European defense markets. As Director of the U.S. Federal Sales team for Oracle On Demand between 2009 and 2010, Mr. Solms was in charge of a team of executives responsible for selling Oracle’s suite of hosted services and remotely managed applications used by the U.S. federal government, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and federal civilian agencies. Between 2005 and 2009, Mr. Solms served as a sales executive at Microsoft, responsible for sales and licensing for the full range of Microsoft products for key customers, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several combatant commands and DOD agencies. Prior to his work in the private sector, Mr. Solms enjoyed a distinguished 20-plus-year military career, capped by service in the Pentagon as a member of the Joint Staff. There, he authored a new, six-phase version of U.S. military war plans as well as chairing the team revising Joint Publication 3.0 “Joint Operations,” both of which were subsequently approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the new standard across all of the U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Solms served as Chief of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Training for the Department of the Army between 2002 and 2004, and earlier as the primary Army representative on the $1.6 billion Joint Training Transformation program. Highlights of his U.S. Army career include serving as the executive officer of the 6th U.S. Cavalry Brigade, Air Combat, in Korea as well as the Operations Officer of an Apache attack helicopter squadron. Other posts include serving twice as an observer controller for the U.S. National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California; Officer Commanding of the aviation tactics flight while on exchange with the Canadian forces in New Brunswick, Canada; Aide de Camp for the Chief of U.S. Army Aviation at Fort Rucker, Alabama; Deputy Operations Officer and Plans Officer for the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment; and Commander of an Apache helicopter company in 1-82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1985 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Mr. Solms makes his home in the Virginia countryside to the west of the Washington, D.C., area with his wife Miriam, and their children Billy, Edward and Ellie. He enjoys spending time with his family on their Virginia farm and taking them sailing to tropical destinations in his spare time. Profile

TWST: What has been your mandate since taking the helm last year?

Mr. Solms: I would probably say that having been CEO for the last 11 months now, we’ve undergone a couple of

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Interview with the President and CEO: Wave Systems Corp. (WAVX)

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Interview with the President and CEO: Wave Systems Corp. (WAVX)

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