McAfee Appoints Michael DeCesare and Todd Gebhart as Co-Presidents
McAfee today said President David DeWalt has announced his resignation, and said it would create an office of the president, to be headed by Michael DeCesare and Todd Gebhart who will serve as co-presidents. DeWalt, who served as President for more than four years, will continue as a non-employee member of the McAfee Board of Directors.
McAfee said that in Q3 2011, DeCesare and Gebhart will report directly to Renée James, Intel senior vice president and group general manager and chairman of McAfee subsidiary. DeCesare is currently executive vice president for global operations, and Gebhart is executive vice president and general manager, consumer, mobile and small business at McAfee.
Some in the industry have suggested that DeWalt may be an ideal candidate to to take the reigns at fast-growing Next Generation Firewall vendor, Palo Alto Networks, which has been without a CEO since December 2010. That being said, remaining as a member of the board at McAfee while taking on a CEO role at a competitor would create an obvious conflict of interest.
DeCesare joined McAfee in 2007 and most recently has been responsible for leading global operations, including manufacturing, facilities, travel and information technology, as well as worldwide sales, channels, sales engineering, consulting services and education services. Since joining McAfee in 2007, DeCesare has continued to fortify the expansion of McAfee sales around the globe, which has resulted in multiple quarters of double-digit revenue growth. He leads a team of more than 2,000 employees and is a critical driver in creating and executing the company’s sales strategy.
Gebhart joined McAfee in 1999. His most recent role was developing and executing the partnership, retail and direct web sales strategy for the global expansion of the consumer, mobile and small business units. Under his leadership, the McAfee global consumer business achieved record sales and established significant partnerships with many leading PC makers, Internet service providers, telecommunications companies and financial services companies.
Intel completed its $7.68 billion acquisition of McAfee in February 2011, after an announcement that surprised the market when Intel said it would acquire the company at $48 per share.
