Tim Dierks
tim@timdierks.com
170 Lexington Avenue #2
New York, NY 10016
212.684.9291
509.692.9798 fax
646.263.2996 mobile


Skills:

  • Engineering Management
  • Information Security
  • Product Vision
  • Software Excellence

I am an experienced software development executive and technologist with deep experience in information security and cryptography. I have a comprehensive skill set, from executive business and strategy issues down to fundamental technology matters. This gives me the important ability to knit together corporate strategy, technical vision, and market awareness. I have a particular familiarity with businesses which directly serve developers, such as software API products and operating systems.

Employment

Independent Consultant June 2002 - present

Services offered include:

  • Market analysis
  • Business development and product management
  • Security architecture and cryptographic design

Specific projects undertaken include:

  • Security reviews for broadband content providers in order to validate DRM technology and other security policies and procedures, including physical and personnel procedures, with the intent of demonstrating to rightsholders the sufficient protection of digital content in a video-on-demand system.
  • Implementation reviews for security against cryptographic, protocol, and other attacks for software developers.
  • Business development, market analysis, technology review, standards group participation, and other general development efforts for a growing cryptographic software company.

Client references available on request.

Chief Technology Officer - Certicom Corp. July 1998 - June 2002

Led product activities at Certicom. Certicom is a vendor of encryption and security software and services, with a focus on technology licensing for inclusion in other products and end-user solutions for handheld platforms and wireless communication. Certicom was listed on the Nasdaq and on the Toronto Stock Exchange, where it was included in the TSE 500; however, it has since delisted from Nasdaq.

At Certicom, and in my preceding role at Consensus Development (which was acquired by Certicom), I had a wide-ranging set of responsibilities involving technology, customers, and solutions.

  • Ran the product management office
  • Headed an advanced technology research team
  • Served as the primary technologist for the Certicom executive team
  • Provided direction on corporate strategy
  • Wrote two prospectuses for public offerings which raised more than $90 million
  • Evaluated the technical aspects of mergers and acquisitions.
  • For 16 months, managed the engineering team of more than 40 engineers
  • Successfully managed a geographically dispersed group, with 50 employees in the San Francisco and Toronto areas.
  • Made frequent sales calls on customers, providing descriptions of Certicom's offerings and customer-specific design and architecture.
  • Worked closely with customers to develop solutions to their security needs incorporating Certicom's products and services.
  • Directed custom development and consulting services in servicing customer needs.
  • Worked on and directed internal efforts to develop technology, policy, and procedures for delivering services such as a complete CA infrastructure, including software, physical installation, policies and practices.

During my tenure at Consensus and Certicom, we grew from essentially no revenue to more than $24 million annually (through Q1 fiscal 2002). During this time, the core of our business has been cryptographic toolkits for licensing to developers, and that business is dominated by our SSL Plus product line. I have done everything there is to do on this product:

  • Personally implemented the first two versions of SSL Plus
  • Wrote core components of the implementation for mobile devices
  • Managed the engineering team that revised the product and extended the technology into the WTLS and IPSec protocols
  • Managed the protocol toolkits product line and supervised the people who managed all Certicom's products
  • Helped to sell millions of dollars of licenses
  • Edited the document for the standardization of SSL in the IETF (as TLS).

While SSL Plus is Certicom's most successful product and the one I have been most involved in, I have been involved in every aspect of Certicom’s products and technical business, including hardware and intellectual property. These efforts and businesses included:

  • Consulting services and custom development, targeted both at product customers and at general third parties
  • Cryptographic software toolkits for use by enterprise and OEM software developers
  • A suite of end-user handheld security products, delivering data encryption and VPN connectivity from PDAs and phones.
  • A complete Certificate Authority, including certificate issuance software, PKI architecture, a physically secure installation, and all policies and procedures.
  • Management and growth of a broad suite of patents, including IP licensing strategies
  • Efforts to pursue standardization by national and international technology standards bodies.
  • Developing physically secure hardware devices and pursuing their certification by certifying labs and standards bodies.
Vice President of Engineering - Consensus Development Corp. January 1996 - July 1998

I joined Consensus to lead their product development effort and created the SSL Plus product. I was responsible for the vast majority of the development of SSL Plus through version 2.0. This extended from product concept work, product management, design and implementation through writing the documentation for version 2.0 and providing most of the technical support over that period. To date, SSL Plus versions I developed and derivative products have been sold to more than 100 customers, producing more than $25 million in revenue. Customers who depend on SSL Plus to secure their and their customers’ data include AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Intuit, Lotus, MCI, Netscape, Oracle, Philips Consumer Electronics, RSA Data Security, Security Dynamics, Sharp, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Wells Fargo, and dozens more.

I also developed a number of other custom products and variations on SSL Plus for various companies and provided security consulting services to a number of major customers. I also managed the engineering organization at Consensus, which not only produced and supported the SSL Plus product, but also delivered custom development and services to our customers.

I was also very involved in the business development of Consensus, including pursuing business development deals, providing sales support, doing marketing and product management, contract review, and working on general business direction. I sat on Consensus’ board for most of 1998 and was instrumental in several major business discussions, especially the negotiations which led to Consensus being merged with Certicom in July 1998. When I joined Consensus, it was a five-person company with a value of less than $700 thousand; we were acquired by Certicom two and a half years later for $24.5 million in cash and stock; at the time, Consensus’ significant assets were its employees and its SSL Plus business.

Technical Lead - Apple Computer November 1991 - January 1996

At Apple, I held a number of different jobs in different organizations within the company. For about two years, I was the technical lead for the Copland project, a major operating system effort at Apple, involving more than 300 engineers; before it was canceled, it was to ship as System 8 for the Macintosh and was to incorporate major OS advances (preemptive multitasking and protected memory) and the first major step forward in the Macintosh’s human interface. In this role, I oversaw the architecture of the system and represented the engineering organizations within the project management team. I wrote the detailed specification for the project and coordinated the efforts of many groups within Apple to update their products for compatibility with this new system.

In addition, while I was at Apple, I provided developer technical support, worked on several other operating systems efforts, and worked on an effort to make the Apple imaging layers, QuickDraw and QuickTime, available on embedded devices such as set-top boxes for interactive television.

Support Engineer - SRL Data, London, England September 1990 - November 1991

SRL Data is a computer services company which provided developer support services in the United Kingdom on behalf of Apple Computer. I provided technical support for Macintosh developers in the UK, answering questions on the use of the MacOS APIs. I was half of the technical support team and was responsible for supporting most of the Macintosh toolbox. I spent several months representing SRL at Apple in Cupertino.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana May, 1990

Other Experience

I participate in the Internet Engineering Task Force and other standards efforts; in the IETF, I serve as the editor for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) working group.

I have presented in a number of forums, including the RSA Data Security conference, the Public Key Solutions conference, Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference, many presentations to the IETF and other standards bodies, and other conferences.

I have written a variety of published materials, including white papers, standards effort submissions and standards, and journal articles.