MasterCard Official Resigns To Lead Internet Security Firm

John Gould has resigned as vice president of electronic commerce at MasterCard International to become chief executive officer of Terisa Systems Inc., a specialist in security for Internet transactions.

Mr. Gould played a key role in developing the Secure Electronic Transactions protocol, known as SET. Terisa Systems, a spinoff of the data encryption company RSA Data Security Inc., also participated, with Visa International, Microsoft Corp., Netscape Communications Corp., and other major technology companies.

The competing bank card associations' accord on the protocol early this year was considered a milestone in electronic commerce. RSA, Terisa, Microsoft, and other vendors will be incorporating the standard in payment products.

Mr. Gould said he decided to change jobs because he was interested in "delivering product."

"I was hungry, I was champing at the bit," said Mr. Gould, an 11-year veteran of MasterCard with a background in software development. "I was getting more and more frustrated in the association role."

Through his work on the protocol, Mr. Gould met Alan M. Schiffman, a cryptography expert and Terisa's chief technical officer.

Mr. Schiffman said Terisa, based in Los Altos, Calif., has 18 employees and has been seeking an executive to focus on management and strategic direction.

"I know the crypto, but John can make the business case," he said.

Aside from RSA, Terisa has backing from America Online, Compuserve, IBM/Prodigy, Netscape, and Verifone's enterprise integration technologies unit, which is Mr. Schiffman's former employer.

Terisa's flagship product, designed for makers of Internet browsers and other electronic commerce software, is known as the SecureWeb Toolkit. Mr. Gould said Terisa is working on about a dozen products, all of which will incorporate SET.

Before heading up MasterCard's electronic commerce division, Mr. Gould led the association's research and development team, where he helped map out a chip card strategy.

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