CPX 2024: Check Point CEO Gil Shwed's Next Move

Gil Shwed, Check Point Software Technologies’ CEO, is looking forward to charting his company’s future as he becomes executive chairman.

In January, Shwed announced he was leaving his role as CEO to take on the new position. He’ll transition to the new role once a new CEO has been hired.

Shwed has been Check Point’s CEO for 30 years and also founded the company.

On the eve of Check Point’s CPX 2024, we sat down with Shwed to talk about his plans in his new position, his company’s milestones through the decades, and more.

“I want to look at how do I shape a little bit more the future of Check Point and how I focus on maybe fewer projects that would make a big impact,” he said. “Now, I've been dealing with this question for many years. People ask me, 'What's your next step, when are you [stepping down], for many, many years. And I did decide that I want to stay with Check Point. I did decide that I want to be in this business, in this company. It excites me. It's great.”

Timing of Check Point CEO's Announcement

Shwed said January was the perfect time to announce he's leaving his role as CEO because “everything was working.”

“We finished a very good quarter,” he said. “We had an amazing set of products coming for 2024. We have a very good team working. Even our stock price was at an all-time high. So I said, 'Well, if everything is at the top, that's the right time to at least start a change.”

Shwed said he hopes his new role with be a “big change.”

“I want to shift away from the day-to-day work,” he said. “I want to bring more leadership to the company that will be able to push Check Point to places that maybe I didn't, and at the same time, I want to take more time and figure out how do we build a sort of a better future, better security for the future of the internet.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for a Q&A with Shwed and images from CPX 2024.