Webroot Names Former McAfee Exec CEO

Peter Watkins, a current member of the Webroot board and former president and COO of Network Associates (now McAfee), has been named CEO of the Boulder, Co.-based security vendor. Watkins comes to Webroot from NAC startup Elemental Security, where he was CEO.

Watkins will take the reigns at Webroot Jan. 1. Former CEO David Moll will stay on as a member of Webroot's board.

"Essentially, Peter and David are swapping roles," Webroot Chairman Eric Spivey said in a statement.

During his stint at Network Associates, Watkins helped drive annual revenue from around $40 million to more than $1 billion. Although he was never implicated in any wrongdoing, Watkins resigned as president of Network Associates on Dec. 26, 2000, along with CEO Bill Larson and CFO Prabhat Goyal amid massive losses and rumors of "channel stuffing," or recording sales to distributors as revenue.

The company blamed the shortfall on distributors' inventory reductions and reduced sales, and shifted its revenue-recognition policy in the channel from a sell-in model to a sell-through-to-the-end-user model.