Hudson's Corero Seeks Sales Growth With New CEO
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Ashley Stephenson has been promoted to CEO of Corero Network Security in Hudson.
Corero Network Security (CNS), which got it first official CEO just 17 months ago, is shaking things up once again.
The Hudson-based firm, which has more than 80 employees and offers products and services that protect companies' computer networks from hacking attacks, has promoted an executive vice president — Ashley Stephenson — to CEO.
Stephenson's promotion comes as Corero seeks to leverage its investment in its next generation product and investments in its sales channels.
IT Veteran
CNS hired Stephenson 10 months ago as executive vice president of product management and strategy.
He has co-founded and led several IT companies, including Reva Systems in Westford, which was acquired by Virginia-based Odin Technologies in late 2010; and Acton-based Xedia Corp., which was acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999.
He replaces Marty Meyer, who will assume the role of president.
Meyer was promoted to CEO in March of 2011, not long after he was hired as CFO and general manager.
CNS is a subsidiary of United Kingdom-based Corero Network Security PLC, which trades on the London Stock Exchange. The British firm entered the U.S. market in June 2011 through its acquisition of Hudson-based Top Layer Networks for $15.2 million in cash, loan notes and stock shares.
The acquisition marked Corero's entry into the network security market. Its other division, Corero Business Services, is based in the U.K. and provides accounting, human resources and payroll software.
Bumps In The Road
CNS has been growing its customer base since the Top Layer acquisition.
According to the company's financial reports, it lined up 78 new customers in 2011 with an average order value of approximately $40,000. In the first half of 2012 (the most recently available filing), CNS added 41 new customers, and increased the average order size to $52,000.
Revenue was $6.7 million for the first half of the year, up from $5.6 million during the same period in 2011.
Earlier this month, Corero revealed its expectations for CNS's fiscal year 2012 earnings, which will be released in late March.
"The Corero Network Security business will, in a year of significant internal change and market repositioning, and adverse macroeconomic factors in Europe, report revenue in line with revenue reported in 2011 ($11.0 million)," Corero said.
Andrew Miller, group chief operating officer, called CNS's sales growth "disappointing," but expressed confidence in the investments Corero has made in the division and in Stephenson filling the CEO role.
"It is clear to the board that organizations are ever more reliant upon the Internet, with unsuitable and insufficient network security solutions to meet the challenges posed by an explosion in the number and capabilities of cyber-attack entrepreneurs and hacktivists," he said.
Reasons For Optimism
CNS specializes in protecting enterprise networks from distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks. And it expects to see continued growth in the need for that protection.
In 2011, industry research firm Infonetics predicted that the DDoS prevention appliance market would more than double to $450 million by 2015.
Additionally, Ponemon Institute researchers found that companies experienced an average of 102 successful cyber-attacks per week in 2012, up from 72 in 2011.
Besides a growing focus on cyber security by companies around the world, CNS's addressable market could become significantly larger later this year, when it plans to launch its next generation product — a hardware platform that can be deployed in virtual environments and high-performance networks.
What that means is that CNS will be able to target the fast-growing cloud computing market.
"Significant progress has been made in the CNS division with the focus now being to deliver revenue growth, with a differentiated network security product and services offering, through a channel-centric sales model," Corero wrote in its announcement this month.
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