CPX 2024: Check Point CEO Gil Shwed's Next Move
Plus, Check Point announced its CPX Americas Partner Awards.
![Check Point CPX 2024 Day 1 Check Point CPX 2024 Day 1](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltc4c3cf818f11fc47/65e7cd28e59187040ae71340/Gil_Shwed_Feature.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Check Point's Gil ShwedCheck Point Software Technologies
Channel Futures: What are you looking for in a new CEO?
Gil Shwed: It's a few things. I want somebody that's passionate about cybersecurity. I think that's No. 1. We are about security, so I want somebody like that. And I'd like to have somebody that would be very outgoing, that would take the company to more customers, more places in the world and work with our team around the world. And of course, somebody that knows how to run enterprise software and a large organization. [Also], somebody that's consistent with our behaviors … as a company, we're very detail-oriented, we are very data-driven. But the main thing is somebody that knows how to run a large organization that wants to go out and shape the future, and meet with customers and so on.
CF: Looking back on your role as Check Point’s founder, what are you most proud of and what do you see as the biggest milestones?
GS: First, I'm very proud, it's like a proud father. I've grown everything with Check Point from day one. The first product, I developed it, I wrote it myself. The first few customers, I recruited them. The first few partners, a channel for cybersecurity didn’t exist. That's something that we invented; we created the channel. Today, it looks like it's a huge channel and there are hundreds of companies. In 1993 or 1994 when I started going out and recruiting channel partners, there weren't any and it was a real uphill battle convincing potential channel partners to jump on the internet. Actually, our first partner wasn't even an internet reseller. It was somebody that worked in a different reseller who quit and started his own company. He was his own startup.
I'm proud of creating the first product. I'm proud of starting the sales model. I'm proud of growing it. For example, we ran this conference in Bangkok, in Vienna and now here in Las Vegas. And many CEOs go presentation by presentation and make sure that it's all consistent and the messages are being conveyed. I was so proud that my involvement was almost zero and everything worked. I’m like a proud father when you see that your kids are doing well.
CF: What are some of the challenges that you've dealt with over the decades and how did you address those challenges?
GS: The main challenge is always how to create transformation. We do things in a certain way and they work well. At Check Point, I must say most of the things work well. We are a very strong company. We are a very profitable company. We have good products, we have loyal customers and it’s never enough. You always need more customers. You always need innovation. You always need to break through to new frontiers. And sometimes it comes from, "I have no choice, the product doesn't work; of course I need to fix it or we lose money, I need to be more efficient." How to do it when everything works is even more difficult because people say, "But why, we are doing well, why change? And we must change because otherwise we will not grow fast enough. We will miss the next generation of technology or we have increased risk. So the main challenge is always convincing people that we need to change and doing it in a good term, not on a bad term. And it happens all the time. Now we're doing a huge transformation in our customer engagement … and we were very successful last year. How do we double and triple the amount of customers that we meet with? If you're a rep, you need to meet all your customers, you need to meet all your channels, you need to tell the Check Point story.
And by the way, I hope that [as] executive chairman, on one hand, I will need to do less of these projects because it will be somebody else's job. On the other end, the ones that I will pick, I will be able to be far more effective because today it's sending people a challenge, spending a half hour in the meeting explaining what I want, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. Maybe as executive chairman, I will be able to spend much more time and say, "OK, let me sit with you. Let me analyze what can we do, how it really works, how do we make it simpler, or how do we make it more innovative?" And I can actually spend hours and hours, and challenge myself and challenge them in how to make something more effective.
CF: You mentioned Check Point’s next stage back in January when you announced you’re stepping down and taking a new role. What do you see as the next stage?
GS: I think the main thing that we’ve been speaking about for a few years now is building a far more integrated architecture for cybersecurity. Today, customers have dozens of products. Some are good, some are not so good. But the main challenge is that they don't work together and they leave a lot of holes between them for the bad guys to come in. And that's when we see cyberattacks coming in. And I think the biggest challenge that we have is to make this into more integrated architecture. Right now, my focus for this for the foreseeable future is what I call the collaborative nature of our products. There's also the issue of consolidation and making it more and more comprehensive, addressing more and more areas. But right now, my main challenge is to make these products collaborate together so when I actually see an attacker, they should stay away from me on all the attack vectors. They shouldn't be able to send me email, scan my network and get to my endpoints, rather than just address it in a single place.
CF: What are you most looking forward to sharing with attendees at this week’s CPX 2024?
GS: So I think one is sharing with them about the platform that we have, which is artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, cloud-delivered and focused on collaboration. And there's a lot of discussion around that, on the AI aspects, on the collaborative aspects, on how it's cloud-delivered. We're launching so many new things around that.
We're launching a new line of security gateways, which is a great platform for doing more security, doing more AI, doing all of that for the customers. So we have a pretty busy conference. It's already the third one, so we've already tested some of the messages and we resonate pretty well. From the last two conferences, the customers and partners left with the correct messages that we want to work with the partners, we want to work with the customers, we want to create this platform. And by the way, the most important thing is to deliver the best security. And our security is way, way ahead of the competition. I'm going to show tomorrow the Miercom test, which shows that our prevention rate is 99.8%, while the competitors average 70%. It's a huge difference. That means that if an organization is getting 177 new types of malware every year, with the competition, 20, 30, 50 or 90 will come in, and with Check Point, none will come in. And that's exactly what the customer needs. There is so much discussion on security about so many parameters, and sometimes people miss the whole thing. At the end of the day, what it needs to do is prevent the attacks, make the hackers stay out.
CF: Are there any continuing impacts or challenges stemming from the Israel-Hamas war?
GS: I hope we've been through the worst part. It happened in October and right now we are back to pretty much normal life again. The war is not over. The war is tragic. I'm not trying to underestimate the impact that the war has on everyone that's involved. But in terms of our business life, we've been able to deliver on all our business goals from day one. We said it should be a high priority for us, even though our heart was with the bad things that happen and caring about the people. We still said what's really important for us, for our employees, for our company and for our country is that we will continue to deliver and we will continue to be part of this global world. The world at the end wants to work. And I think we've been able to do that. The first week of the war, we had some new product launches. We made all of them, and since then things were OK. We finished the fourth quarter, which was the entire quarter since the war, with very good results. Keep in mind, by the way, that a big part of our company is in Israel, but the biggest part of our company, and especially the parts that deal with customers, are all outside Israel, all over the world.
On Tuesday, Check Point announced its CPX Americas Partner Awards.
"Our Check Point Partner Awards winners are pioneers who set new standards of excellence in the cybersecurity industry, propelling us toward a safer digital future,” said Francisco Criado, Check Point’s vice president of global partner ecosystem organization. “I extend my sincere congratulations to all our esteemed winners and nominees. Together, we anticipate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as we strive toward innovation, growth and preventative security."
Check Point's Francisco Criado
The winners are:
Americas Partner of the Year – Sayers
Distributor of the Year – Licensias OnLine
GSI Partner of the Year – DXC Technology
Harmony Partner of the Year – Gotham Technology Group
Cloud Partner of the Year – Sycomp
Infinity Partner of the Year: ePlus
Service Provider Partner of the Year – Bell Canada
New Customer Partner of the Year – The Teneo Group
Growth Partner of the Year – Enterprise Consulting Group
Latin America Partner of the Year – NTSE
Canada Partner of the Year – Bell Canada
"We are proud to be recognized by Check Point with these two partner awards, said Michael Richer, senior vice president of enterprise solutions, data engineering and AI at Bell. “At Bell we are committed to developing top-tier cybersecurity solutions, and our collaboration with Check Point strengthens our capabilities to meet the evolving needs of our enterprise customers. We look forward to our continued partnership and to driving positive change in the industry.”
On Tuesday, Check Point announced its CPX Americas Partner Awards.
"Our Check Point Partner Awards winners are pioneers who set new standards of excellence in the cybersecurity industry, propelling us toward a safer digital future,” said Francisco Criado, Check Point’s vice president of global partner ecosystem organization. “I extend my sincere congratulations to all our esteemed winners and nominees. Together, we anticipate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as we strive toward innovation, growth and preventative security."
Check Point's Francisco Criado
The winners are:
Americas Partner of the Year – Sayers
Distributor of the Year – Licensias OnLine
GSI Partner of the Year – DXC Technology
Harmony Partner of the Year – Gotham Technology Group
Cloud Partner of the Year – Sycomp
Infinity Partner of the Year: ePlus
Service Provider Partner of the Year – Bell Canada
New Customer Partner of the Year – The Teneo Group
Growth Partner of the Year – Enterprise Consulting Group
Latin America Partner of the Year – NTSE
Canada Partner of the Year – Bell Canada
"We are proud to be recognized by Check Point with these two partner awards, said Michael Richer, senior vice president of enterprise solutions, data engineering and AI at Bell. “At Bell we are committed to developing top-tier cybersecurity solutions, and our collaboration with Check Point strengthens our capabilities to meet the evolving needs of our enterprise customers. We look forward to our continued partnership and to driving positive change in the industry.”
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.
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