PQShield has expanded its executive leadership team with the appointments of Hal Conklin as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) and Gemma Ungoed-Thomas as Sovereign Advisor. Conklin brings over 30 years of commercial technology experience from roles at companies later acquired by Arm, Synopsys, and Autodesk, and will lead PQShield’s global sales and U.S. expansion. Ungoed-Thomas, former Director for State Threats, Cyber and Technology in the UK Cabinet Office, will advise on public-sector strategy, national security, and critical infrastructure resilience as global post-quantum cryptography (PQC) adoption accelerates. The full release is available here.
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has appointed Jani Kivioja as Vice President of its Quantum Technologies research area, effective November 1, 2026. Kivioja brings extensive R&D leadership experience in microelectronics, nanotechnology, and quantum research, having previously held positions at Nokia, Picosun (part of Applied Materials), and VTT. In his new role, he will oversee VTT’s quantum R&D and commercialization strategy to bridge scientific research with industrial applications across quantum computing, sensing, and communications. The complete announcement can be found here.
QuantWare has appointed Bart Filius as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and member of the Board of Directors, effective October 12, 2026. Filius brings over two decades of financial and executive experience, having previously served as CFO, COO, and President at Galapagos—where he managed its Nasdaq IPO and a $5 billion R&D collaboration with Gilead—as well as CFO of Sanofi Europe. At QuantWare, he will lead financial strategy and capital allocation as the company scales industrial fabrication at its KiloFab facility. The news release details are accessible here.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has appointed national quantum research leader James Misewich, Ph.D., as the Curtis R. Priem Quantum Computing Constellation Chair, effective January 1, 2027. Misewich currently serves as Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Photon Science at Brookhaven National Laboratory and is a founding leader of the DOE’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA). In his new role, he will join RPI’s Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy to lead RPI’s quantum strategy, expand research collaborations with Brookhaven, and advance the region’s quantum ecosystem while retaining a joint appointment at Brookhaven. The press release is available here.
We wish all these organizations and individuals success in their new endeavors.
October 9, 2026