McAfee Taps Cisco Veteran As Global Channel Chief

Thurber will be McAfee's new senior vice president of worldwide channels and is expected to start next week, a McAfee spokesperson said.

Thurber will join the Santa Clara, Calif.-based security giant just weeks after executive vice president of worldwide channel operations Roger King revealed that he was leaving McAfee to seek out new opportunities. King's July departure led to an aggressive search for a successor.

At Cisco, Thurber was most recently senior director of technology go-to-market strategy for worldwide channels and was responsible for the development and implementation of go-to-market strategy for security, mobility and emerging technologies for Cisco's worldwide channels organization. In addition, Thurber was charged with managing the channel aspects of acquisition integration and for designing new channel business models on a global scale.

Before holding that post, Thurber was managing director of channels for the Japan theater. During his nearly 10-year career at San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco, Thurber was also a security sales specialist and regional manager.

Thurber will join McAfee after months of ups and downs in the McAfee channel organization.

In May, McAfee tapped Fernando Quintero to head up its American channel organization as Americas vice president of channel operations. Quintero, who joined McAfee in 2002 and had most recently served as McAfee's head of channels for Latin America, filled a position left vacant for months.

Dave Dickison, who at one time headed McAfee's North American channels, abruptly left the company in January, and McAfee declined to say whether Dickison stepped down voluntarily or was terminated. When Dickison left the company, he was vice president of channel operations.

Dickison's departure came after he had been replaced in September 2008 by Lisa Loe, who took over Dickison's role of vice president of North America channel operations. At the time, Dickison was reassigned to focus on "rebalancing the channel." Loe, however, left the company mysteriously just three months later in December 2008.