Tackling the cybercriminal

That's because the newly-appointed president of Asia-Pacific at McAfee has a bunch of kids--60 to be exact--waiting for him on Sunday mornings. The Aussie, who has been based in Hong Kong for the past three years, is head coach to a rugby team for children under 10.

Mentoring a young rugby team and its team of coaches has "amazing similarities" to managing a company, says Redman. He is conscious that his job requires him to delve into root causes and help employees to see where and how they can improve, rather than just finger-pointing or yelling. Empowerment is also important, he notes.

In his current role, Redman is responsible for some 1,000 employees in the region, of which 800 are in research and development and 200 are field staff. The 44-year-old is no stranger to the IT industry, having spent the last 20 years of his career in EMC, Lucent and Xerox.

During a recent visit to Singapore, Redman spoke to ZDNet Asia about his new role and plans for the region.

Q: You joined McAfee from EMC, like McAfee CEO and President David DeWalt. Was that a coincidence?
Redman: Not at all. Dave and Mike [Michael DeCesare]--executive vice president of worldwide sales--were the guys who took me to Asia in the first place [to work] for EMC Asia.

Dave and Mike together are probably the best combination of executives I've ever seen. Dave is exceptional on vision and strategy, and Mike is exceptional on operational excellence. I love working for them, so it's absolutely not a coincidence.

I would say that there are two reasons why I came to McAfee, and that's one of them.

What's the other?
Just getting into the security space. Storage is pretty boring--it's hard to get fired up about storage. Security is going to be No. 1 in the IT space, for the next five, 10 and even 15 years.

I'm also starting to get really excited that IT security is in fact actually making a difference to the world, in terms of catching cybercriminals. Cybercrime is very heavily linked to physical crime, and it's growing at 54 percent per annum.

How different is your role now, compared to previously?
There are some obvious similarities--the focus in my last role as the leader of the APAC business was to develop a strategy and execute it. So my role now is to listen and learn, develop a strategy for Asia-Pacific in the next three months, present it to Dave, Mike and the board and then execute that strategy over say, three years.

What I think is very, very different is that EMC was a 35,000-person company, so I feel much more empowered at McAfee to make a true difference.

Basically, it's me, Mike, Dave and the board. If we succeed and grow Asia, it's because of us; if we don't, [again] it's because of us. At the moment, we're somewhere around 5 percent of the worldwide revenues, if we could take that to 10 percent, just how big a difference that would make to the company. But that's not a specific goal, just an example. Making a difference to the global numbers is something that really motivates me.

You've been in your appointment for about a month. What's your mandate really for the region?
The Steve Redman view--and it really isn't a mandate--is that we should grow double the market. It's a personal goal that I've had in other companies. That means you're both growing and taking share.

To excel, you need to grow the market and also take market share from a competitor.

Are there specific countries you're looking at to achieve growth and market share?
Australia's really big, so that's an important market. The BRIC countries--Brazil, Russia, India, China--is a focus strategy from Dave…we've got two of the top four countries [here in Asia] in terms of growth focus. Australia and Singapore are mature markets and they will continue to be very important for us.

Another strategy we have is getting in early on emerging markets. Markets like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are really starting to produce some really significant-sized businesses.

Given your background, how do you view the marriage of storage and security?
Obviously Document management and the document work flow and storage elements had security elements to them. But the reality is, what [people are actually] doing is selling storage with security.

Security is really continuing to define itself as a specific industry--it's not going to be marginalized inside other industries, that is, database security, storage security.

What McAfee does is really focusing on, if you like, network and desktop security. That to me is going to be the most exciting area because that's the area that's going to be the most vulnerable--when you look at all the big news around security breaches, they're all around "inside".

[More often than not, it's the insider threat] than a hacker from external, and there are also worms and Trojans and things like that. These are the two most common areas that McAfee attacks.

McAfee made a couple of acquisitions last year but otherwise has been pretty quiet on the acquisition front. Would that change?
A couple last year and a couple the year before are what I would call not quite aggressive, just consistent probably.

[Having said that,] Dave and the team will definitely look for acquisitions that make sense. We're going to stay a dedicated security company, so that could mean four in 2008 or [perhaps just] one; we haven't got a strategy to acquire other companies, we have a strategy to acquire companies that make sense [to our business]. That's one of the things that EMC Software did very well--one year there was six and the next year it was one.

Acquisitions are not like revenue. If you do 100 million dollars, then Wall Street expects you to do 110 million dollars and you should, [either] grow the company or reduce expenses to grow profit. But if you do six acquisitions it doesn’t mean next year you'll do eight.

What [Dave] said to me is, if an acquisition makes sense in Asia, then let's do it. If five make sense in Asia, let's do it. I wouldn't say we're going to be more or less aggressive but we'll stay very clear on our strategy--[go for] the ones that make sense and definitely within the dedicated security portfolio.

Some companies do go aggressively just for the sake of being aggressive, and then they realize [later] they acquired someone that doesn't make sense. It's like the CEO was on a power trip or something. [They go:] "We've got a security company and a data backup company--two completely different markets--and let's merge them together"…aka Symantec. That took two years. They're through it now, I think, but it took them a long time.

McAfee has done well in the last year or two…the ones we acquired have really kicked our business along.

But I'll have to say if I had to take my hat off to EMC for one thing, that would be for the acquisitions they have done. I think we'll follow a fairly similar model [to acquire the companies] that make sense and then work very aggressively to make them feel part of the McAfee team.