You were appointed CEO last February. What’s surprised you most about what running one of the world’s largest cybersecurity vendors entails?
It’s been one of the most fun learning experiences of my life. It’s an entirely different set of stresses to what I was accustomed to dealing with, and probably the most surprising element of it was having the opportunity to go in and systematically look at functions in the business outside of technology, R&D and service. I’ve always led technology teams, software development teams and services organisations. Having the chance to go in and work with the go-to-market organisation and the legal team, and systematically looking at ways we can improve the underlying processes of the organisational design has been a delightful experience.
What’s been your most stressful moment?
I don’t want to be on the record with what my first impulse was…what I can say is that SecureWorks is the largest acquisition that Sophos has ever done – it was an $859m acquisition. A lot of work went into due diligence, the integration planning, and the carve out from Dell. I wouldn’t say any of it was inordinately stressful, but it was just a lot of work.
How likely is it you will make more acquisitions in the next 12 months?
Very likely. We’re an acquisitive company by nature. In the ten years I’ve been here, I think we’ve done about as many acquisitions. We historically do an average of about one a year. There have been some years where we’ve done three, and we’ve had quiet periods for a couple of years but it’s very likely that we’ll see at least one in the next 12 months.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
