Symantec Replaces CTO as Part of Company Makeover

Security provider Symantec (SYMC) last week jettisoned chief technology officer (CTO) Steve Trilling and replaced him with 20-year Microsoft (MSFT) veteran Amit Mital, as the company pounds out chief executive’s Steve Bennett’s plan to overhaul its product lineup to address sophisticated threats.

Trilling, a 16-year Symantec veteran, will remain on board in another senior leadership capacity as Mital, who reports to Bennett, assumes ownership for driving the vendor’s technology strategy, product innovation and development and R&D.

At Microsoft, Mital most recently served as Startup Business Group corporate vice president, tasked with managing strategic product development and uncovering new opportunities for innovation. He holds some 43 patents and is regarded as an expert in machine learning, Big Data and high-scale web and cloud services—all areas of interest to Symantec, the company said.

“Amit is a leader with proven abilities to innovate, develop and execute new products,” said Bennett. “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.”

Mital said he is “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’s hiring comes in the wake of earlier exits of two top Symantec executives. In November, products and service president Francis deSouza, a seven-year company veteran, left for the top job at Illumina, and in September longtime CFO James Beer departed the company in favor of a similar post at McKesson (MCK).

Andrew Del Matto, current Symantec chief accounting officer and senior vice president, is serving as acting CFO.

Last April, Symantec rolled out Symantec 4.0, its new customer-focused sales strategy with an increased emphasis on channel partners. Under the vendor’s new sales model, field reps now are incented to work with channel partners and more resources have been invested in business development activities and enablement.

Bennett has vowed to prune what he termed the vendor’s bloated management ranks, reframing the company around a more succinct mobility and security lineup and streamlining operations.