AKMSecure

About

AKMSecure

Our Story

AKM was founded to solve a problem most in the cybersecurity industry have accepted as unsolvable: how to embed true Zero Trust into every transaction — without relying on legacy Public Key Infrastructure, excessive overhead, or fragile workarounds.
With a one-time setup, no need for external validation, and zero ongoing maintenance, AKM flips the cybersecurity model from reactive to resilient. And for environments requiring extra hardening, our low-cost hardware companion module brings added protection — with a path to further scalability via FPGA or ASIC.
Our founding team came together with over 100 years of combined experience across aerospace, defense, critical infrastructure, and embedded systems. They've built avionics for Airbus, security protocols for Boeing, hardened control systems for global rail networks, and contributed to international standards like IEC 62443 and CENELEC TS-50701. We saw firsthand how existing solutions — particularly PKI — fail to scale, struggle to comply, and leave even air-gapped systems vulnerable.

So we built something BETTER.

AKMSecure (Autonomous Key Management) is a quantum-resilient cybersecurity platform that eliminates the need for traditional certificates and central authorities. It's the only software solution that fulfills all tenets of the CIA Triad — Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability — at the frame level. Our patented architecture ensures every endpoint, every transmission, and every device is authenticated, encrypted, and secure by design. It works offline or online, in a factory, on a satellite, or under the sea.

This is the cybersecurity rewrite the industry has been waiting for.

Our Team

The Minds Behind AKM

Brian McGowan

Brian McGowan

Chief Executive Officer

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Bart Shields

Bart Shields

Founder, Chief Technology Officer

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Ian Benedict, CPA

Ian Benedict, CPA

Chief Financial Officer

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Doug McLean

Doug McLean

Chief Product Officer

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Larry Butler

Larry Butler

Founder & Chief Engineer

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Klemens Geiger

Klemens Geiger

Chief Compliance Officer

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Chase Exon, Esq.

Chase Exon, Esq.

General Counsel

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Ashley Powell

Ashley Powell

Chief of Staff

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Our Advisors

Leaders Influencing Cyber Innovation & Policy

Dr. Mark T. Maybury

Dr. Mark T. Maybury

Board of Advisors

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Dr. Chase Cunningham

Dr. Chase Cunningham

Board of Advisors

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John Hickey

John Hickey

Board of Advisors

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James Faist

James Faist

Board of Advisors

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John Thomas

John Thomas

Board of Advisors

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Gregory Wessel

Gregory Wessel

Board of Advisors

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