The best CEO in Silicon Valley: John Thompson has transformed Symantec into a multibillion-dollar security software juggernaut

Black Enterprise, Sept, 2004 by Alan Hughes

Shortly thereafter, Thompson ran IBM Americas, a $37-billion-a-year division, where he helped integrate e-commerce into the businesses and services of corporate and government clients throughout North America. While in this role, Thompson began to realize that he wanted a shot at running a company as CEO. "It was clear to me that the itch I had couldn't be satiated or scratched inside IBM," Thompson says. "I was going to have to leave to go fulfill what had become my aspirations at that point in time." So in April of 1999, Thompson left IBM with 27 years, 9 months, and 13 days behind him--just two and a half years away from a gold watch.

BIGGER FISH IN A SMALLER POND

Unknown to Thompson at the time, the board of Symantec felt the company needed to go in a new direction, and a search was under way to find a replacement for Founder and CEO Gordon Eubanks, who was leaving the company. The board enlisted Heidrick & Struggles International, a publicly traded executive search firm, which in turn contacted Thompson. After spending three hours meeting with Robert "Steve" Miller, lead director of Symantec's board, Thompson, who was curious about the possibilities at a much smaller firm, "became even more curious and decided to pursue it."

Thompson felt Symantec was a perfect fit for him, as it allowed him to move from a corporate behemoth to a smaller, more nimble company. "I have a sports car, and I have a big sedan. If you just want a nice, comfortable, cruising ride, you take the big sedan," Thompson says. "But if you want to feel every bump in the road, and you want to have real performance, you take the sports car. Symantec is the sports car. I'll let you conclude what the other car is."

In 1999, Symantec was a sort of mid-cap conglomerate in the software business--a company that managed brands, not technology and channels, not customer relationships. Thompson decided to change all that and opted to focus on one technology category: security. And so two years before 9/11 brought security--including network security--to the forefront of the minds of Americans and the global community, Thompson and company jettisoned all technologies that weren't relevant to securing the Internet infrastructure. "We had Java development tools, we had personal contact management systems," recalls Thompson. "We had a whole range of things that didn't relate to anything in common, except they could be moved through the same distribution channel. And my answer is: Who cares about that?"

With the blessing of the board, Thompson had free reign to work his transformation. To this end, many of the firm's top managers were replaced. Even board members were replaced. "It was clear from the very beginning that if this was in fact going to be a transformation of a company, there was no way that the board could have recruited me or anyone else and not been supportive of the strategy that we were trying to implement," the CEO recalls. According to Thompson, only two of the directors that were at Symantec when he arrived are still on board.