GFI plans London stock market listing, acquisitions

Malcolm J. Naudi met Curtis H. Staker, chairman and chief executive officer of San Gwann-based GFI, who outlines the company's current position and future strategic direction

San GWann would appear to be an unlikely location for a computer security company that is, in the words of its chairman and CEO Curtis H. Staker, "a growing worldwide force in the security arena". Yet the building that formerly housed Radio 101 currently is the location for GFI's worldwide research and development, product management and a high proportion of its marketing, apart from other administrative functions.

"Malta is the heartbeat of GFI," Mr Staker told me during a 90-minute meeting in his modern, spacious office at GFI House last week. "Malta has the infrastructure and the people." Just under 90 members of GFI's staff are Maltese out of a total workforce of 210.

"The ingredients of a successful company are to attract and retain really good people. To do that we have to be able to attract the best of the best" - referring to a job fair GFI recently organised locally.

Although founded in 1992, GFI engaged Mr Staker, an American, last September. He described GFI as a company where "the technology works, the technology is very good, and the technology, when used by our customers, is a very important part of our customers' success".

GFI produces and develops network security, content security and messaging software, with a suite of nine products falling under these three umbrellas.

Mr Staker was employed to give a greater focus to the company, "marshalling the troops", enabling the top executives to prioritise. He tells the anecdote of one particular executive who came to him with pages of priorities in one of his early meetings.

Having seen them, Mr Staker picked one line out of the whole lot and told the executive to focus on that priority to the exclusion of everything else, physically cutting the one line that he considered to be the top priority from the list at the edge of the table. "Leave the rest to me," he told the surprised executive.

My first question to Mr Staker was: what attracted you to GFI? "I am a diligent person," he replied. He was attracted by the fact that, at the end of the day, the technology worked and by GFI's "market space".

The key target market is the network administrator of companies with 500-1,000 users or less - although the software has no issues of scalability. "We protect over 100,000 networks," he affirmed. "Everyone wants to use your (security) software but nobody wants to admit they need it."

GFI prides itself on doing things differently and this, to Mr Staker, is a major attraction. It offers "fantastic technology" enabling customers to add one plus one to get three. Apart from selling through its Website www.gfi.com, it also has a network of over 10,000 resellers.

Mr Staker says when he was appointed CEO last September he found a company with very good technology and very good people but one that was asking itself what it was going to do next. "GFI has a unique offering - a one-stop shop for network administrators" that enables them to be confident that their networks are operational. "We sell amazingly cost-effective products that are easy to install - and they work," he said.

GFI today has offices in six countries, apart from Malta. The headquarters of the Americas, which represents 55 per cent of sales (the remaining 45 per cent comes from the rest of the world), is in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the United States, where 65 members of staff work. London houses its European HQ, employing 35, and there are offices in Hamburg, Germany, Nicosia, Cyprus, Hong Kong and Adelaide, Australia.

Malta remains a hub with Webcasts and teleconferencing going on across the company's offices all day. Although Mr Staker has an office in Malta, he lives in San Diego, California, and urges his staff to "think externally" to sell software people want to buy.

Asked about his role in the company, Mr Staker said that as chairman, a post he was given last February, he gives the five-member board of directors direction. "The board meets four times a year, including twice a year when presentations from top executives are made," he said.

"I make sure the board remains an asset to the company and marshal their expertise. Our last meeting was in London, when the board presentations were made, and our next meeting is in Rome in July."

Eight senior company executives report directly to Mr Staker. Over time, he intends to add more management structures. He sees his role as CEO as one that unlocks what people are thinking, providing overall direction.

"It is pleasurable to see the ideas come over. I want to encourage participation and accountability. I remind the staff of the maxim that when they talk of 'them' and 'they', they had better be referring to the competition."

Mr Staker hails from Peoria, Illinois, the second city in the state after Chicago. His home town is synonymous with Caterpillar, whose products include construction, agricultural and forestry equipment, and the University of Bradley, where he studied mechanical engineering ("the proper engineering").

He is one of seven children and his father was a lift truck driver at Caterpillar. Mr Staker went to Eureka College, Illinois, on an (American) football scholarship and his first job was at Caterpillar, first on the production line while still at university and then as an engineer.

He then joined Bruel & Kjaer Instruments, working in sales and marketing and spent 12 years with Structural Dynamics Research Corporation (SDRC), now owned by UGS, working in a variety of positions, including vice-president and general manager of its Americas operations (North and South) and vice-president and general manager of its Asia-Pacific operations.

The company went from sales of $60 million to $500 million and he was the youngest vice-president ever at SDRC, aged 35. He then joined Websense for four and a half years, first as executive vice-president of worldwide sales and, from January, 2003, as president, leading the company, which enhances employee productivity when using the Internet.

During his stint with Websense, he was responsible for a five-fold increase in sales, and doubling the number of customers to more than 24,000. "At Websense I learned to be fiscally responsible" and the experience of working with a public (listed) company has been carried on to the privately owned GFI.

Mr Staker is married and has two sons, aged 25 and 22, plus an adopted daughter in Mexico City who has two children. His pride and joy are his three dogs, whose photo he has on his desk.

"I am a very open person," he said. "I don't think GFI will be private for-ever. It is a natural movement - though not imminent in the next few months - but eventually we will be listing on the London Stock Exchange.

"GFI does not embrace any particular culture or geography. We have just had a fantastic first quarter, which followed a solid final quarter. It all depends on how fast you invest (and) where. We want to make acquisitions."

In terms of the company's long-term strategic direction, he said it was important to look at the business fundamentals and to time new products so that they provided a solution for the abuse and the threat.

"We are going in the right direction but we retain the flexibility to move within 10° to 15° of our current direction. Ambiguity is not a bad thing in some areas in a fast-moving company," he said.