Symantec fires CEO

Security and storage vendor Symantec has sacked its CEO of three years, Enrique Salem.

"The company is underperforming against the opportunity," said Sam Bennett, president and chairman of the company, who will take over as CEO. "While progress has been made over the last three years in many areas, it was the board’s judgment that it was in the best interests of Symantec to make a change in the CEO.”

The company made the announcement as it unveiled its latest set of quarterly financial results. For the three months ending June 29 2012, revenues grew by just 1% to $1.7 billion and net income fell 9% to $172 million. Sales fell in its two largest divisions, consumer and storage and server management.

Symantec forecast a year-on-year revenue drop of up to 3% for the coming quarter. These results in fact beat analysts expectations, and the company’s share price rose 7%.

Salem has been with Symantec for 19 years. He took over as CEO when John Thomson stepped down to become chairman. In 2011, Salem’s total compensation was around $8.5 million.

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Ben Rossi

Ben was Vitesse Media's editorial director, leading content creation and editorial strategy across all Vitesse products, including its market-leading B2B and consumer magazines, websites, research and...

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