How not to hype a new CEO

I'm going to rant a bit about security marketing and hyping of a new CEO. I read this release announcing Anne Bonaparte as Tablus' new CEO yesterday (here) and thought I had stepped into an alternate reality.

Now I get that a new CEO is a big deal and you want your employees and customers to say "cool!" Your competitors should say "oh crap!" when the new person is announced. But what you can't do is over-hype a CEO to the point where it's laughable.

In terms of disclaimers and caveats, I don't know Anne Bonaparte. Never spoke to her. Though it wouldn't surprise me if we became acquainted very soon. She may very well be a very capable CEO and the right leader for Tablus right now as they fight in a very crowded market doing not a hell of a lot of revenue (6 VC-backed vendors chasing after maybe $60M in revenue this year). This is not an attack on her, more about how she's been over-hyped.

What I object to is how the PR folks have spun her last gig at MailFrontier.

"She previously served as the president and CEO of MailFrontier, where she established the company’s market leadership in the e-mail security space, developed strategic partnerships, dramatically accelerated organizational growth and spearheaded the company’s acquisition by security vendor SonicWALL. Under her leadership, the MailFrontier brand achieved worldwide recognition."

Maybe this is a different MailFrontier. The MailFrontier I remember from when I was in the email security business was a non-contender. I guess they sold a couple hundred boxes to SMB customers and were then thankfully rescued by SonicWall for $31 million.

That's a good exit? Market leadership of what? Worldwide brand recognition? That is a load of crap. MailFrontier was one of many losers in the space and they got lucky to be acquired for more than 10 cents. I covered the deal (here) and my analysis still stands. I think it was a good deal for SonicWall, but not because MailFrontier was some sort of gem.

My point here is that exits are good. And many CEO's are talented. But to try to reinvent history for the sake of hype just annoys the folks that were actually there. It impacts the credibility of the organization when a gig is described through such rose-colored glasses to be unbelievable.

Good luck to Ms. Bonaparte in her new gig. I hope it works out better than the last one. I suspect Tablus' investors have similar hopes.

OK, off soapbox now.