Sophos Appoints New CEO As Longtime Leader Steps Down

UK-based security company Sophos has announced a new CEO to replace Steve Munford, who is stepping down after six years at the helm

Munford is to be succeeded by Kris Hagerman (pictured below), previously of Symantec and Veritas, and CEO of graphics processing vendor Corel Software. Sophos gave no reason for Munford’s departure, other than to say he was returning with his family to his native Canada.

Munford (below) will stay on at Sophos as a non-executive chairman of the board. He said he would be “working closely with Kris and the board as we continue to build on Sophos’ global success”.

Sayonara Steve

“Steve has been an outstanding leader for Sophos,” said Peter Gyenes, chairman of Sophos’ board of directors.  “Under Steve’s leadership, the company has delivered strong revenue growth, built a comprehensive product portfolio, and successfully entered a number of high-growth market segments, including unified threat management (UTM), mobile device management (MDM) and cloud encryption.

“Kris brings strong execution and strategy skills, a proven ability to lead top performing teams, and a successful track record of scaling billion-dollar software organisations.”

Hagerman was unavailable for comment at the time of publication, but did issue this statement: “Sophos has a winning strategy, a highly talented team, and world-class products that provide an exciting opportunity to expand our share of the growing IT security industry.