John Thompson, Symantec CEO, has been credited for getting enterprises to take seriously the once-consumer-driven software supplier. Now he has his sights on national security.
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Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA in New Jersey, was a hunted man. John Thompson, Symantec CEO and chairman, wanted him as a board director and he wouldn’t leave Schulman alone. Phone calls followed a cross-country meeting; despite Schulman’s reluctance about joining the board of a company so far from home – Symantec is in Silicon Valley – he didn’t feel rejection was an option. “He wore me down,” Schulman jokingly remarks.
Persistence is just one of the 53-year-old’s characteristics. Charismatic, dynamic, results-oriented – these words also describe him, observers and colleagues say. And selling is in Thompson’s blood. He loves the sell so much that, even as CEO, he is known to pass up a few holes on the golf course to be on his cell phone closing deals, big or small.
Getting industry experts such as Schulman and Google CFO George Reyes to join Symantec’s board is testament to Thompson’s persuasive powers, honed in 28 years at IBM. There, he rose to the top leadership position at IBM Americas before leaving for the CEO spot at Symantec in April 1999.
Observers say Thompson’s IBM-trained discipline has served him well in revitalizing Symantec, a consumer-oriented company that was foundering.
Enterprise evangelist
Thompson’s strategy calls for transforming Symantec from a company almost completely consumer-oriented to one focused on the enterprise market. Toward that end, he has sold off Act, a personal management tool, and Visual Café, a software development platform, and bought 10 enterprise-related software and services suppliers. Today, 65% of revenue is from corporate customers, just shy of Thompson’s 70% goal, compared with 35% in 1999.
As part of the transformation, Thompson replaced more than half of the original 2,300-person workforce with people who knew the enterprise market. Reyes acknowledges that Thompson’s drive toward the enterprise market caused dissention as staff members “had to put up and commit, or leave.” But, Reyes adds, Thompson invested considerable time and effort in evangelizing about the enterprise. “John clearly invested in the buy-in process of employees. He’s a caring man, but he’s also a very good businessman,” he says.
Thompson’s determination to win even more of the corporate market is illustrated by his billion-dollar-plus shopping spree that has netted Symantec 10 enterprise-related software and services vendors. This includes last summer’s near-simultaneous acquisitions of Mountain Wave, for security information management software; Recourse Technologies, for its intrusion-detection system; Riptech, for its security monitoring system; and SecurityFocus, for its security alert and bug-tracking services. “You don’t find many CEOs that have the courage to [acquire four companies at once],” Reyes says. Through its acquisitions, Symantec’s workforce today stands at 4,200-strong.
Thompson revels in being a high-profile CEO, which lately means promoting cybersecurity to government officials. In September, Thompson joined the National Infrastructure Assurance Council, providing advice to the U.S. government on security of critical infrastructure. Thompson says he will push for cybersecurity education.
Despite his extracurricular activities, Thompson is not ready to lose his high profile at Symantec or among its customers yet. Last January, Symantec named John Schwartz as president and COO, leading some to wonder whether Thompson was getting ready to resign. Thompson dismisses the suggestion and jokes that he will be at Symantec for “another 10 years, until I retire. I’ll be 63 by then.”
Having Schwartz frees Thompson to do what he does best – sales and marketing. And it gives this New Jersey native more time to explore California and to duck hunt, one of his favorite pastimes.
Suited up and ready to go
Thompson says too much emphasis is put on the differences between East and West Coast work cultures, but does admit to finding some elements of Silicon Valley casualness distasteful. “I want people to come in ready for work, not to spend a day at the beach. I want people suited up and ready to go,” he says, adding that the phrase “suited up” is metaphorical rather than reflective of his IBM shirt-and-tie upbringing.
Perhaps this attitude stems from his upbringing. Thompson’s parents – his father a postal worker and his mother a teacher – engendered an appreciation for respect, integrity and education. Thompson himself received a master’s degree in management science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, following a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Florida A&M University.
Still, Thompson considers changes he’s made at Symantec subtle. “I didn’t change the company culture. I’ve tried to look at the things the company stands for and achieve a balance. I want Symantec to focus on sustainable results; understanding the needs of large companies – not what the channel needs for this quarter,” he says.
Likewise, Thompson says he wants industry observers to focus on Symantec, rather than himself. As such, he dislikes being referred to as Silicon Valley’s highest-ranking African-American executive. “If it brings attention to Symantec, I’m happy to play along with it, but it should be of no consequence,” he says.
