Symantec fires CEO Bennett
Hunt for new boss begins today
So much for Symantec 4.0. After one too many missteps and missed financial targets, the security and storage vendor known as Big Yellow unceremoniously dumped CEO Steve Bennett on Thursday.
Symantec board member Michael Brown takes over as interim president and CEO as the search for a new chief executive begins immediately, company officials said.
"We recognise Steve's contributions to Symantec, including developing and leading a series of successful initiatives focused on organisational realignment, cost reduction and process effectiveness," said Symantec board chairman Daniel Schulman in a statement announcing Bennett's termination.
"Our priority is now to identify a leader who can leverage our company's assets and leadership team to drive the next stage of Symantec's product innovation and growth.
"This considered decision was the result of an ongoing deliberative process, and not precipitated by any event or impropriety," Schulman added.
Bennett's short, rocky stint in Symantec's corner office began less than two years ago after a similarly dramatic shakeup that saw the ousting of Enrique Salem.
Ousted Symantec CEO Steve Bennett
Bennett, a veteran of Intuit and General Electric, took over as CEO of the California-based Symantec as part of a turn-around plan that sought to move the company past its three-year grapple with its product positioning and portfolio in an increasingly cloud-centric world.
Six months into his job as CEO, Bennett initiated what the company dubbed Symantec 4.0, a reformation programme designed to transform the software company and return it to growth.
Clearly those changes were not coming quickly enough for Symantec's board. And the company has suffered a series of missteps of late, including a widely criticised move to withdraw from the cloud backup market with the discontinuation of Backup Exec.cloud service.
Salem - who had his share of success during his tenure with Symantec including some $2bn (£1.21bn) in acquisitions of complementary technologies, including VeriSign Security Business (digital certificates), PGP and Guardian Edge (encryption), Live Office (backup) and Mi5 Networks (security services) - now serves as a special advisor to cloud storage vendor Box.
New interim CEO Brown - who was on the board of directors at Veritas Software when it was acquired by Symantec in 2005 and also previously served as CEO of Quantum - issued a brief statement concerning his interim executive leadership position in the wake of Bennett's firing.
"With recent key hires, we have a leadership team in place that is capable of accelerating our growth and I look forward to working closely with them to help execute the next phase of the company's transformation plan," Brown said. "The need for protecting and managing your information has never been stronger, and we must act aggressively to capture a growing share of this market.
"By concentrating on product innovation and growth initiatives, we aim to leverage Symantec's tremendous assets across both consumer and enterprise applications to enhance our position as a market leader."
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