VeriSign CEO Departs

VeriSign Inc. (VRSN) said early Tuesday that CEO Stratton Sclavos stepped down from his positions. The company named William A. Roper Jr. as president and chief executive. Roper had been the board's lead independent director and he has been a board member since November 2003. He most recently served as executive vice president of Science Applications International Corp., a diversified technology services company.

No explanation was provided for the executive changes. VeriSign also has postponed its 2007 analyst meeting, previously set for June 6.

In other changes, Edward A. Mueller was named VeriSign's chairman. He is the former head of specialty retailer Williams-Sonoma and has been a director of VeriSign since March 2005.

"VeriSign is a highly respected company with an attractive business model and leading positions in growing markets. The board remains committed to our strategy, and is pleased with the early results of the restructuring program we began this year," said Roper. "I look forward to working with VeriSign's management team to capitalize on the company's growth opportunities while ensuring the strongest possible emphasis on managerial discipline and execution."

In February VeriSign said it would invest $100 million in infrastructure upgrades to manage explosive growth in Internet traffic. The initiative, named Project Titan, will include the construction of new data centers, upgrades to existing equipment, and leasing space in dozens of third-party facilities around the world. VeriSign said it intends to "expand and diversify the capacity of its global Internet infrastructure by ten times by the year 2010."