Former Microsoft Executive Amit Mital Named Chief Technology Officer at Symantec
Symantec announced on Wednesday that Amit Mital has been appointed as chief technology officer (CTO) for the security firm, replacing current CTO Steve Trilling who be taking an operational role in the company.
Mital comes to Symantec from Microsoft where he spent 20 years, most recently serving as corporate vice president for the company’s Startup Business Group.
Mital will be tasked with driving the company’s technology strategy with a focus on accelerating innovation, product development and R&D, the company said.
Mital will report directly to Steve Bennett, Symantec’s CEO who took the reigns of the firm in July 2012 following former CEO Enrique Salem being pushed out by the Board of Directors.
“Amit is a leader with proven abilities to innovate, develop and execute new products,” Bennett said in a statement. “We’re on track executing roadmaps to leverage Symantec’s technology to solve our customer’s most important problems and Amit’s expertise will help us move faster and more effectively in this stage of our transformation. We are thrilled to add such a talented executive to our leadership ranks.”
“I’m excited to be joining Symantec at such a crucial juncture in the company’s history,” said Mital. “I’m looking forward to working alongside Steve and our more than 20,000 employees worldwide to develop and deliver innovative point solutions and integrated offerings that will drive the industry — and Symantec — forward.”
Mital holds a M.S. in Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
The move is the second significant management change announced by the security giant in the past weeks. In mid November, Symantec announced that Francis deSouza, president of products and services, would leave the company on December 1st to become President of Illumina, a San Diego, Calif.-based life sciences company.
Earlier this year at its own Vision 2013 conference, Bennett told a large audience that his company is changing. During a keynote address, Bennett said he planned to move the company forward slowly, but consistently, enabling Symantec to limit any negative side effects their customers and channel partners may feel by the changes themselves. Bennett also said the company would focus strategy and operational planning on organic growth, and stick to developing new solutions, and retooling existing products that are able to solve their customer’s largest unmet, underserved needs.
Symantec reported revenue of $1.64 billion for its second quarter of fiscal year 2014, ended September 27, 2013, down 4 percent year-over-year and down 3 percent after adjusting for currency.