McAfee taps EMC for new chief executive

Security vendor McAfee has appointed Dave DeWalt as its new chief executive.

He replaces Dale Fuller who acted as the firm's interim CEO after a stock option back dating scandal the previous chief executive last October.

DeWalt most recently served as executive vice president and president of customer operations for EMC and headed up its Documentum content management group.

The new executive takes over a company that is facing several challenges. The form most notably is confronted with competition from Microsoft in the consumer anti-virus and security market.

McAfee also is going through the aftermath of a stock option back dating scandal, that may force the company to add US$100m to US$150m of charges to its revenues over the past 10 years. The security firm is one of more than 170 companies that face stock option back dating probes.

Fuller will continue to serve on McAfee's board of directors. DeWalt is scheduled to take over on 2 April.

Chuck Robel, non-executive chairman of McAfee, said: "DeWalt brings strong execution skills, a proven ability to lead top performing teams and an excellent track record in driving shareholder value to McAfee."

Additional reporting by Trevor Treharne.