Michele McGough

Founder and CEO solutions4networks

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Michele McGough founded solutions4networks around the turn of the millennium with $20,000 and has run it since, building a Pittsburgh IT infrastructure and security firm that now works nationwide for industrial and enterprise clients including Bayer, Alcoa, PPG and US Steel. The business sits in a demanding niche: enterprise networks, cybersecurity, data centre and unified communications work for organisations that cannot tolerate downtime, which means the firm competes on the depth of its engineering bench rather than on price. It holds Cisco Premier Partner status and staffs CCIE- and CISSP-certified engineers, with a technical team averaging fifteen years of experience. It is also a certified woman-owned business and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, which matters commercially in public and large-corporate procurement. McGough’s stated reason for starting it is unusually specific for a founding story: she had held management roles at Fortune 500 companies and concluded that their cultural and organisational failings were not inevitable.

Career Highlights

• Founded solutions4networks with $20,000 in startup capital and has led it as CEO for more than twenty-five years.
• Built the firm into one of Pittsburgh’s most established IT solutions companies, operating nationwide from a Pittsburgh headquarters.
• Developed a practice spanning enterprise networks, cybersecurity including penetration testing and intrusion detection, data centres, unified communications, network automation, low-voltage cabling and carrier services.
• Named a finalist for CEO of the Year at the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s Tech 50 Awards in 2019, in a programme judged on job growth, sales success, corporate citizenship and innovative technology.
• Established and maintained the company’s status as a certified woman-owned business and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise.
• Achieved Cisco Premier Partner status and built vendor relationships with Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, F5 and Nimble Storage, backed by CCIE- and CISSP-certified staff.
• Won and retained large industrial and enterprise clients including Bayer, Alcoa, PPG, US Steel and Industrial Scientific.
• Recognised with a Best Place to Work award from the Pittsburgh Business Times.
• Serves on the boards of several Pittsburgh-area nonprofit organisations.

Professional Journey

McGough spent the first part of her career in management roles at Fortune 500 companies. That period is the least documented part of her record - no source names the employers or the positions - but it supplies the motive for everything after it. Her own account, repeated in the company’s material, is that she observed cultural and organisational deficiencies in those organisations and started her own business partly to prove that a firm could be run differently. It is a common claim and an uncommonly load-bearing one here, given that the company has since won a Best Place to Work award from the Pittsburgh Business Times.

She started solutions4networks around 1999 or 2000 - the company’s own sources give both - with $20,000 in capital. The firm grew in a regional market shaped by heavy industry, and its client list reflects that: Bayer, Alcoa, PPG, US Steel and Industrial Scientific are not companies that buy on price or tolerate an unproven vendor. Winning that kind of work required technical credibility, and the company built it through vendor certification, achieving Cisco Premier Partner status and staffing engineers holding CCIE and CISSP credentials, with a technical team averaging fifteen years in the industry. Its vendor relationships extend to Palo Alto Networks, F5 and Nimble Storage.

The practice has broadened with the market. What began substantially as network engineering and unified communications now covers cybersecurity, including penetration testing and intrusion detection, data centre work, cloud and hybrid networks, network automation, low-voltage cabling and carrier services. The firm operates nationwide while keeping its headquarters in Pittsburgh.

McGough’s certification of the business as woman-owned and as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise has been a deliberate part of the commercial strategy as well as a statement about the company, since both statuses carry weight in public-sector and large-corporate procurement where supplier diversity requirements apply. Recognition from the regional industry body followed: in 2019 the Pittsburgh Technology Council named her a finalist for CEO of the Year in its Tech 50 Awards, which are judged on job growth, sales success, corporate citizenship and innovative technology, and she has appeared on the Council’s own podcast discussing the business. Alongside running the company she holds board positions with several Pittsburgh-area nonprofits.

Education

No educational background could be established for Michele McGough. No university, degree or field of study appears on the company’s website, in the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s independent profile and podcast feature, or in any other source consulted in this pass.