Trend Micro completes EMEA management clear out

Dave Moss, Rob Farmer and Anthony O'Mara among recent executive departures as vendor ploughs on with 'SoLoMo' strategy

Trend Micro has canned a handful of EMEA management positions, completing its drive to decentralise more responsibilities to individual regions such as the UK.

Dave Moss, EMEA director of channels, and EMEA alliances director Rob Farmer have departed as part of the shake-up, the former after just nine months at the security vendor.

Global head of business operations Anthony O'Mara (pictured) is also moving on, although he will remain in a non-executive role. This follows the departure of EMEA distribution director Mark Johnson - who now works for Commvault - in September.

Talking to ChannelWeb, Simon Young - who was made UK general manager this month - said all these roles are now being carried out locally within newly set up business units, which include the UK, Germany, southern Europe and the Nordics.

This fits in with Trend Micro's new "SoLoMo" (social, local, mobile) buzzphrase, Young said.

"This is not a restructure or a downsizing, but rather an investment in local resources," he said, adding that Trend's global headcount has actually risen over the past year.

"There is a global initiative to go local," he added. "Anthony has been here for 12 years and has been a great servant to the company but the roles of regional leaders are now being done at a local level.

"This gives us incredible flexibility and the ability to execute at different speeds depending on the appetite of each market."

A year ago, Trend restructured its UK business, making the country a separate business unit and throwing more resource behind the enterprise segment in a bid to win more deals outside its SMB anti-virus stronghold.

"We have brought in some new partners, particularly in the virtualisation space among partners who have realised how strong our virtualisation portfolio is," Young said. "We are getting a lot more opportunities as a result but we are still looking for new partners."

Young, alongside the bosses of all the EMEA business units, will now report to Wael Mohamed - who like him, joined Trend through its 2009 acquisition of security virtualisation outfit Third Brigade.

O'Mara said he is committed to staying at Trend in a non-executive capacity for two years but needed a new challenge.

"I have been at Trend for 12 years and thought it was time to do something else," he said. "I am working in a non-executive capacity with two companies that are in the middle of funding and advising two others. I am not looking to go to another corporation for the time being."