Aliro Quantum Expands Executive Team With First Chief Marketing Officer

New CMO Michael Wood brings extensive security, networking, cloud and SaaS experience to elevate and expand Aliro's mission of building the world's first scalable quantum networks 

BOSTON, Sept. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aliro Quantum, the first pure play quantum networking company, today announced the appointment of its first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Michael Wood. Over the past 12 months, the company has continued to expand engagements with systems integrators, telecom providers, major government agencies, and academic and industry partners to design, architect, simulate, and build quantum networks.

Wood will lead Aliro's global marketing initiatives and will be responsible for messaging, positioning, growth marketing, demand generation, analyst, and media relations. He brings more than 30 years of experience in enterprise networking, security and software, as well as a passion for launching new solutions, categories and technologies. Wood joins Aliro from Versa Networks where he built and led the marketing organization. He has also held senior leadership positions at VMware, VeloCloud Networks, Akamai and Cisco. Wood joins recent appointee, Michael Gaffney, Aliro's Head of Public Sector, on the company's senior management team. Gaffney recently opened Aliro's Washington D.C. presence to support the company's expanding government and public sector initiatives following a career in Army intelligence and years implementing cloud and security solutions for the government.

"Aliro is on a mission to build the quantum internet, and we have had remarkable success developing the foundational technologies needed for quantum networks, working with a number of organizations to simulate and build their next generation of networks," said Jim Ricotta, CEO and Chairman of Aliro Quantum. "Michael Wood has had repeated success creating and growing new businesses and markets, and his expertise will help us continue to build momentum."

"With Michael Wood and Michael Gaffney aboard, Aliro will continue its impressive growth," said Dr. Prineha Narang, founder and Chief Technology Officer with Aliro. "The respective experience and enthusiasm these two leaders bring to the company will accelerate our mission to build the first scalable quantum networks."

"Just like the modern-day Internet has done, the impact of quantum networking will be more transformative and remarkable than anything we can imagine today," said Michael Wood, Chief Marketing Officer, Aliro Quantum. "It's an incredibly exciting time to join Aliro Quantum, and I look forward to helping to build, market, and brand commercially available quantum networks that establish unhackable connectivity, scale quantum computers, and operationalize distributed quantum sensing."

Aliro Quantum, the first pure play quantum networking company, builds entanglement-based networks that are capable of running a wide variety of applications from secure communications to clustered quantum computing and distributed quantum sensing. Aliro, spun out of NarangLab at Harvard University, includes world-class experts in quantum and classical networking and is leading the charge in quantum network development by offering the foundational technologies needed for organizations around the world to build scalable and powerful distributed quantum systems.

Aliro is working with industry and academic partners through the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), the NSF Center for Quantum Networks (CQN), and the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute Hybrid Quantum Architectures and Networks (HQAN). Aliro is partnering with leading quantum hardware vendors including IBM, Honeywell Quantum Solutions (now Quantinuum), and Rigetti Computing. To learn more, visit www.aliroquantum.com.

SOURCE Aliro Quantum