Symantec CEO steps down

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 18 November 2008 09:24

IT People - People

Hot on the heels of completing its acquisition of MessageLabs, Symantec has announced that John W. Thompson, chairman and chief executive officer, will retire as CEO at the end of the fiscal year. His replacement will be Enrique T. Salem, Symantec’s current COO.

Following the transition, which is effective April 4, 2009, Thompson, 59, will remain chairman of the board and Salem, 43, will join the board of directors.

Thompson, a former senior manager and vice president at IBM where he spent 28 years, has overseen a marked period of transition for Symantec during his 10 years at the helm. Notably, he has been at the helm of the company as it transformed its business from its largely consumer based security software product offering to enter the corporate market.

One of the key deals that Thompson oversaw was the US$13.5 billion acquisition of storage and backup software company Veritas in 2004, which transformed Symantec into the fourth largest software company in the world.

More recently Thompson has been at the helm, while Symantec further expanded its reach with the US$695 million acquisition of online security vendor MessageLabs.

“I am proud of our team’s accomplishments over the past 10 years as we’ve transformed the company from a consumer software publisher to the leader in Internet security, data protection and storage management,” said Thompson.

“I’ve always believed planning for succession was a critical part of my role and, for the past two years, have been working with the board on a thoughtful succession plan. Through that process, Enrique emerged as the right person to lead the company and I am confident in his ability to continue to drive the success of our team.”

“Over the past 10 years, John has led the effort to diversify Symantec’s customer base and has grown the company’s revenue tenfold. The board appreciates all he has done for Symantec and his leadership in driving the succession planning process,” said Robert S. Miller, lead independent director of Symantec’s board. “We are grateful that John will remain chairman of the board and work with the team to ensure a smooth transition.”

Thompson's replacement, Salem first joined Symantec in 1990 when the company acquired Peter Norton Computing. He held a variety of positions during that nine-year tenure including chief technology officer and vice president of the security business unit.

Salem left Symantec to join Brightmail, an  anti-spam software company, as president and chief executive officer. He returned to Symantec when Brightmail was acquired by Symantec in 2004.

In January 2008, Salem was appointed chief operating officer responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations, global product development, sales and marketing.