John Hickey Joins AKMSecure Board of Advisors

AKMSecure welcomes John Hickey, President of August Schell Enterprises, to its Board of Advisors. Hickey brings more than three decades of cybersecurity and IT leadership spanning the U.S. Army, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and the defense industrial base. 

His experience across PKI, identity management, network operations, and enterprise-scale program management aligns directly with AKM’s mission to replace PKI with a quantum-secure, autonomous alternative.  

A Career Built at the Center of DoD Cybersecurity

At DISA, Hickey held a series of increasingly senior roles over nearly 13 years. As Chief Engineer of Identity Management, he designed and executed the DoD’s SmartCard Logon initiative, removing username-and-password authentication from DoD networks for over 2.5 million users — one of the largest identity infrastructure overhauls in federal history.

He went on to serve as Technical Director of Information Assurance, Portfolio Manager for the DoD Mobility Program, and Commander of the Joint Spectrum Center, where he oversaw capability delivery and led the DoD’s spectrum relocation effort. He concluded his DISA tenure as Cyber Development Executive after serving as Risk Management Executive and Chief Information Officer.

Before DISA, Hickey served 27 years in the U.S. Army in various command and staff positions as an Infantry, Signal, and Information Systems Engineer.

Hickey joined August Schell Enterprises as Chief Operating Officer in 2018 and assumed the role of President in October 2019. He now oversees all aspects of August Schell, from business development to daily operations, serving federal and defense customers.

Importance to the AKM Misson

Hickey’s career has focused on driving large-scale, mission-critical cybersecurity and identity modernization initiatives across some of the most complex environments in the federal government. His firsthand experience architecting and scaling PKI-based systems, along with a deep understanding of their operational limitations, directly reinforces AKM’s mission to deliver a more secure, autonomous, and quantum-resilient alternative at enterprise scale.

“John has operated at the intersection of identity, encryption, and enterprise security at a scale very few people have,” said Brian McGowan, CEO of AKMSecure. “His firsthand experience deploying PKI across the DoD makes him an invaluable advisor as we bring Autonomous Key Management™ to federal and defense networks.”

“AKM’s approach to autonomous, quantum-resilient key management addresses the exact challenges I saw firsthand — the cost, complexity, and the evolving vulnerability of certificate-based infrastructure at enterprise scale,” said Hickey. “I’m pleased to join the Board of Advisors and support AKM’s growth in the federal space.”

About AKMSecure

AKMSecure delivers a patented Autonomous Key Management™ protocol built to replace outdated PKI approaches with a dynamic, quantum-secure, air-gapped-capable architecture. Instead of relying on persistent credentials that can be stolen, reused, or abused, AKM enables independently verified sessions with no standing privileges left behind. The result is a model that better aligns with Zero Trust principles, reduces credential-based risk, and supports resilient operations across enterprise IT, OT and Tactical Edge environments. Built to NSA-grade security standards and deployable as a lightweight SDK, AKMSecure helps organizations modernize trust at the protocol layer without rebuilding everything around it.