It has been known for some time that Gil Shwed, founder and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies, is going to pass the baton to someone else. After a thorough search of at least five months or so, the choice has fallen on Nadav Zafrir, one of the founders of Team8, a VC fund.
Gil Shwed is not just anyone in the world of cybersecurity. The nickname “inventor of the firewall” may be a little too much credit for him (although Shwed holds the patent for inventing stateful inspection), but he certainly played a big role in the early 1990s in developing the firewall as we actually still know it. In 1993, he was one of the founders of Check Point. Shlomo Kramer, the current CEO of Cato Networks, is one of the other founders who no doubt rings a bell.
After 30 years, enough is enough for him as Check Point’s big boss. Such a long tenure as CEO is not very common in the IT industry. From memory, we can only think of Jensen Huang of Nvidia at the moment. He even adds another year and always calls himself the longest-serving tech CEO of the moment. No doubt there will be others who have been the top dog at the same technology company for a long time, but there certainly aren’t many. Especially in the world of cybersecurity, which is quite dynamic to say the least, 30 years is a long time.
A venture capitalist as successor: Nadav Zafrir
Shwed will hand over the baton in December and then become Executive Chairman of Check Point. He will then pass this baton to Nadav Zafrir. Zafrir is one of the founders and a managing partner of Team8, a VC fund that invests in and/or helps establish cybersecurity companies. According to Check Point’s press release, it involves 17 companies in total. According to Shwed, this makes Zafrir a “key leader” in the cybersecurity ecosystem.
The fact that Check Point appoints Zafrir may mean that the company’s focus is shifting a bit. Shwed was first and foremost “the inventor of the firewall”. Zafrir, based on the information we have seen, comes across primarily as a builder of enterprises. That may also be what Check Point needs right now. It is already one of the largest pure security players in the world. For investors, however, Palo Alto Networks, a major Check Point competitor (founded by Nir Zuk, who also comes from Check Point, by the way), is more interesting. That means Check Point is undervalued relative to Palo Alto. Zafrir’s background and the potential impact he will make at Check Point might change that perception.
The announcement that Check Point is getting a new CEO was made when the quarterly figures were released. Revenue was up 7 percent year-over-year and security subscriptions sales were up 14 percent.
Also read: Check Point sets new standard with Quantum Force firewalls