Douglas takes over Bioscrypt

TORONTO--Effective May 18, Robert Douglas has taken the reins as president and chief executive officer of Bioscrypt, the biometrics and access control manufacturer that this year acquired A4Vision, a maker of facial recognition technology. Former chief executive and president Robert Williams will remain with the company for a brief time to help with the transition. "This is about creating high growth," said Douglas in an interview on the floor of IFSEC, held in May in Birmingham, England. This is about "being able to accelerate our profitable growth, increase the value of what biometrics can offer to enterprise access control. To me, that's rock-star technology." Douglas has served on the Bioscrypt board for more than two years, at Williams' invite. Douglas has 22 years in the tech sector, including nine years in enterprise software experience. His expertise is in turning companies around or accelerating them into "hyper growth." High on his agenda is creating a tactical plan to better work with integrator partners. "We have to fundamentally increase the value proposition that we can offer to the partners," Douglas said. He hopes part of the answer to that is Bioscrypt's single-sign-on technology that allows a biometric to grant access to virtually anything. "It's the BMW of the biometric industry," he said. "Part of the relationship is having valuable and high-technology products, along with providing excellence and service. Those last two are areas we have yet to unleash." Further, he said, "I'm about protecting and being loyal to the channel, having a mass channel is not something you'll see us do." One thing you will see Bioscrypt do, Douglas said, is initiate a complete partner feedback survey, using a third-party firm, and doing a similar survey with employees. The company will use the results both to better server partners and evaluate which companies might be targets for acquisition and which areas deserve research and development investment. "I think there's a pendulum shift you'll see," said Douglas, "where we're going to be more customer driven."