Box hires former CIO of the GSA to lead push into federal government

Another government official has decamped to Silicon Valley.

Sonny Hashmi, the former chief information officer of the General Services Administration (GSA) is joining cloud storage company Box as its new managing director for government, where he'll head up the company's push into servicing federal agencies.

In a blog post published Thursday, Box CEO Aaron Levie described Hashmi's experience with the GSA as transformational, as he helped the organization modernize its IT portfolio and transition over to the cloud.

"At Box, Sonny will be driving our Federal strategy as a new vertical effort in our Box for Industries initiative," Levie wrote. "Box has been used within government agencies for years as a secure platform for sharing and collaborating on critical information, and we see a significant opportunity to expand in this space."

Box stakes its reputation on being a secure cloud storage provider for the more than 275,000 companies using its platform. Which is where Box for Industries steps in, to back up the security promise of the newly minted public company.

First detailed last September, Box for Industries is designed to accelerate innovation within specific industries through the use of apps, implementation and domain expertise -- all based on and powered by the Box platform.

Last month Box announced the beta launch of its industry specific platform for the financial services sector. With the addition of Hashmi, Box is clearly looking to step up its efforts when it comes to making inroads with the federal government, which obviously includes landing those lucrative government contracts.

To help realize that goal (and boost its bottom line), Box says it is pursuing FedRAMP authorization, the security standard set by the Defense Department when evaluating new technology for use within government agencies.