Sales VP Lewandowski Leaving McAfee

In a statement, a McAfee spokesperson said Lewandowski's resignation will take effect at the end of January and that his departure was neither part of last week's layoff of 125 members of the vendor's global workforce nor a termination. McAfee intends to replace Lewandowski by the end of March, the spokesperson said.

Lewandowski, who was responsible for field sales in the Americas for the McAfee System Protection and McAfee Network Protection solution sets, could not be reached for comment. He is no longer listed in the company phone directory. According to the spokesperson, Lewandowski's direct reports have been moved to Roger King, executive vice president of worldwide sales. King, former president of Software Spectrum, joined McAfee in October and handles sales operations and channel development.

Lewandowski was highly regarded in both direct and channel sales circles, according to one solution provider. Although McAfee has been working to streamline its sales teams recently, the source was surprised by the news of Lewandowski's resignation.

"We needed to have less sales people to deal with, and Mcafee said they were looking at options. But I didn't think Lewandowski would decide to leave. That's huge," said the source, who requested anonymity.

McAfee, which laid off 20 channel staff in August as part of a plan to increase its focus on partners that cater to SMBs, also let go at least four members of its channel marketing team last week, sources told CRN.

However, solution providers said the channel team downsizing isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, some VARs said bringing in new channel blood could help McAfee to do a better job of motivating partners to sell higher-end solutions such as security risk management.

"This is all part of Roger King's plan to realign McAfee's sales and channel sales organizations and build a channel around more high-end products," said a source who requested anonymity. "McAfee is channel friendly, but they needed someone to take them to the next level."