Palo Alto Networks, a company that develops a firewall offering that filters web traffic based on the type of application generating it, announced its latest hire as it’s starting to prep for an initial public offering.  Mark McLaughlin, who served in various positions at VeriSign throughout the past decade, most recently as the CEO of the web authentication & security giant, will become chief executive of Palo Alto Networks.

McLaughlin will start after Aug. 25 or one day after his last day at VeriSign, said Palo Alto Networks spokesman Mike Haro.

Some more info on the hire:

“The Palo Alto Networks board, which started the CEO search in December, was impressed with McLaughlin because references said he had a good track record of working with large customers, particularly in government agencies, an area the company is targeting for growth,” Haro said.

The company plans on increasing its staff by over 75 percent, by hiring 300 more people in this fiscal year, starting today.  Palo Alto Networks generates about $200 million in annual revenue and hit profitability five quarters ago, which probably gives it a good chance to follow the path of LinkedIn, Yandex and other companies that managed to comfortably reach IPO expectations.

The tech industry IPO season, which really kicked off with LinkedIn’s highly successful public offering, has been going at it for several months now.  Home-valuation site Zillow is one of the latest companies to take this route – according to an SEC filing, the company plans to sell about 3.5 million shares in hopes of raising $69.2 million. Social media marketing firm IZEA also had some IPO news recently–the company raised $3.3 million in a public offering finalized on May 12.