Symantec Wednesday pushed its CEO and president of three years Enrique Salem out and installed its chairman, former Intuit CEO Steve Bennett, in his place. Shares rose a cheery 13.5% to $14.96 on the news.
“While progress has been made over the last three years in many areas,” Bennett said in a statement, “it was the board’s judgment that it was in the best interests of Symantec to make a change in the CEO.”
“My view is that Symantec’s assets are strong and yet the company is underperforming against the opportunity. I’m looking forward to working with the team to build upon the significant assets in place to help Symantec accelerate value creation for all of its stakeholders.”
He intends to follow up on Symantec’s push into mobile security. He also intends to conduct a 90- to 120-day review and interview customers, employees and partners to figure out what’s wrong.