Federal Contractors/Technology: D. JAMES BIDZOS

Verisign reported $1.33 billion in 2021 revenue, a nearly 5% improvement over the previous year. Founded by Bidzos in 1995, the company is a domain name registry and internet infrastructure provider; it serves as the registry for all addresses that end in .com — more than 350 million domain names as of the first quarter — and has approximately 900 employees.

Bidzos is an internet pioneer; he started his career at IBM and was previously president and CEO of RSA Data Security Inc. He also co-founded RSA Laboratories, a cybersecurity research organization connected to the company, which created early encryption software. Bidzos, an early advocate for the use of commercial cryptology, struck a deal for the Netscape browser to use RSA technology, according to The New York Times. He led RSA until 1999, stepping down to focus on Verisign, which had spun out of RSA as a security certificate company for internet commerce.

More recently, Politico reported that because of a no-bid contract reached with the Trump administration, Verisign will be able to raise annual prices for registering or renewing internet addresses. Verisign is expected to reap an additional $85 million from the first year of price hikes.