Symantec President of Products and Services Departs for Life Sciences Firm

Symantec said on Tuesday that Francis deSouza, president of products and services, is leaving the company on December 1st to become President of Illumina, a San Diego, Calif.-based company that makes life science tools and integrated systems to analyze genetic variation and function.

Symantec’s products and services leadership team will now report to the company’s President and CEO, Steve Bennett who took the reigns of the security firm in July 2012.

“Francis made a substantial impact during the seven years he was at Symantec, helping guide the development and restructuring of our product portfolio,” said Bennett. “We wish Francis every success in his new position.”

“We are confident in our strategy and have made significant progress in our company transformation. We’ve improved our existing point solution offerings, built dedicated teams to create and refine the new integrated offerings, and have attracted lighthouse customers as early adopters of our new offerings. I look forward to working more directly with the products and services team to ensure that we are delivering for our customers,” Bennett added.

“It’s been a privilege to work at Symantec on protecting individuals, companies and governments. Looking ahead, the talent of the Symantec team, innovative offering roadmaps and deep partner relationships position the company very well to extend its leadership in solving customers’ most important problems,” deSouza said.

At Illumina, deSouza will report to Chief Executive Officer Jay Flatley and will lead Illumina’s business units and the core functions responsible for envisioning, developing and producing the company’s products, according to an announcement from Illumina.

deSouza joined Symantec through the acquisition of IMlogic in February of 2006, where he was co-founder and CEO. Before his years at IMlogic, he was co-founder and CEO of Flash Communications, a provider of corporate instant messaging that was acquired by Microsoft in 1998. Following that acquisition, he joined Microsoft and led the team responsible for the development of the company’s enterprise real-time collaboration offerings. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board for MedHelp, the world’s largest online health community. deSouza holds a number of patents in computer security, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with MS and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.