GFI names its first CFO

San Gwann-based GFI, the network security, content security and messaging software provider, has appointed its first chief financial officer, Christopher D. Gale.

Mr Gale, 50, is formerly of Clearswift Ltd., a content security software company based in the United Kingdom, where he was the CFO and a member of the board of directors since 2003.

During his tenure at Clearswift, Mr Gale was responsible for the finance, legal, information technology, human resources, renewals sales and sales operations functions.

Earlier in his career, Mr Gale spent 12 years with Apple Computer Inc. in a variety of senior financial management positions and was also part of the management team at Cooper and Chyan Technology that completed a successful IPO and subsequent trade sale for US$400 million to Cadence Design Systems.

He has over 20 years' experience in high tech, living and working not only in the UK, but also in Silicon Valley for 10 years and France for four years. He has achieved wide and diverse experience ranging from private to public and start-ups to Fortune 100 companies.

Mr Gale will be located in GFI's London office. "Along with the board of directors and the GFI executive team, we are very pleased to have Chris join our team," Curtis H. Staker, chairman and CEO, GFI, said.

"His breadth of experience and proven leadership in both public and private companies will greatly contribute to GFI's accelerating success."

Mr Gale said: "GFI is an excellent company that is poised for more success. I am looking forward to working with the company to develop its financial and operational infrastructure to help capitalise on its growth opportunities."

GFI's ability to adopt key technologies early on has led it to be a market leader. Today, GFI's award-winning solutions help its 160,000 small to medium and enterprise-level customers maintain robust and secure infrastructures.

Earlier this year GFI launched its Global Partner Programme, an enhanced channel strategy that enables its partners to better solve the IT issues of the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) within the global marketplace, providing its partners with services typically only reserved for resellers producing volumes in line with enterprise-level deployments.