UK security firm Sophos has appointed a new CEO, with Kris Hagerman taking over from Steve Munford.
Hagerman has previously had spells at rival firms Veritas and Symantec, although he was in the data centre management section at Symantec and held a similar role at Veritas, where he was executive vice president, storage and server management. He was at Veritas when it was acquired by Symantec.
Peter Gyenes, chairman of Sophos’ board of directors, said: "Kris brings strong execution and strategy skills, a proven ability to lead top performing teams, and a successful track record of scaling billion-dollar software organisations.
"I am thrilled to join Sophos," said Hagerman. "Sophos has a winning strategy, a highly talented team, and world-class products that provide an exciting opportunity to expand our share of the growing IT security industry. I look forward to working with the Sophos team to deliver compelling value to our customers and partners and to continue the company’s momentum and success."
The company says Munford will move to the role of non-executive chairman of the board but will be returning to his native Canada with his family. He had been in charge at Sophos since 2006 and oversaw a tripling in bookings since then, with revenue from bookings topping $400m for its last fiscal year.
He oversaw a number of acquisitions including Astaro, which saw Sophos enter the unified threat management (UTM) market.
"Under Steve’s leadership, the company has delivered strong revenue growth, built a comprehensive product portfolio, and successfully entered a number of high-growth market segments, including unified threat management (UTM), mobile device management (MDM) and cloud encryption," said Gyenes.
In 2010, private equity firm Apax Partners agreed to acquire majority interest in Sophos. The deal valued the company at $830m.
