 Courtot was appointed chairman and CEO of Signio, an electronic payment company that Courtot re-positioned to be a large secure payment provider in the e-commerce industry in 1999.In 2000, Courtot led the company through an acquisition by VeriSign, an internet security company that purchased Signio for $1.3 billion.Courtot had begun investing in Qualys, a cloud security company, back in 1999, but was named CEO in 2001 after he had left Signio.