Meet The Five People Starboard Value Wants To Put On Symantec's Board

A New Set Of Eyes

Activist investor Starboard Value revealed Thursday that it has taken a 5.8 percent position in Symantec and plans to nominate five candidates for a director position on the Symantec Board of Directors.

Starboard believes that Symantec's shares were undervalued at the time of purchase (primarily since mid-June) and said it hopes to engage in constructive dialogue with the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's management team and board regarding opportunities to unlock more value. Specifically, Starboard said it's looking to change the composition of Symantec's board.

Only one of the proposed five board members is employed by Starboard itself, and the nominees have leadership experience ranging from top competitor McAfee to IT specialty distributor Arrow Electronics to professional services giant Ernst & Young. Each of the four non-Starboard nominees has purchased at least $16,000 worth of Symantec shares with personal funds on the open market.

Read on to learn more about the people Starboard would like to have chart Symantec's future.

Nora Denzel

Stake In Symantec: 750 Shares, Purchased For $16,000

Nora Denzel spent nearly five years as an executive at Mountain View, Calif.-based financial software company Intuit, serving as senior vice president of big data, social product design and marketing. Prior to that, Denzel spent seven years at Hewlett-Packard from 2000 to 2006, culminating in a five-year stint as senior vice president and general manager of HP's enterprise software global business unit.

Denzel already serves as board member at three other companies: networking and telecommunications company Ericcson since April 2013; semiconductor vendor AMD since March 2014; and big data integration vendor Talend S.A. since July 2017.

Denzel purchased her entire stake in Symantec on July 16. She is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland, and bases her business operations out of Florida.

Peter Feld

Stake In Symantec: 36 Million Shares (Due To His Affiliation With Starboard, Not Owned Individually)

Peter Feld has been the head of research and managing member of Starboard Value since 2011, when he co-founded the hedge fund. He previously spent more than four years at alternative investment management business Raimus, working his way up to the managing director role.

Feld has significant expertise serving as a shareholder representative on numerous technology company boards, including semiconductor vendor Marvell Technology Group from May 2016 to June 2018; physical security firm The Brink's Company from January 2016 to November 2017; and HR services provider Insperity from March 2015 to June 2017.

Feld bases his business operations out of New York.

Dale Fuller

Stake In Symantec: 14,200 Shares, Purchased For $292,000

Dale Fuller served as interim president and CEO of McAfee from October 2006 to April 2007, and as a member of McAfee's board of directors from January 2006 to July 2007. He also served on the board of cybersecurity vendor AVG from November 2008 to October 2016, including a seven-and-a-half-year stint as AVG's chairman of the board.

Fuller has served as board chairman of MobiSocial since January 2013, and in March joined media measurement and analytics company comScore as a board member. Previously, he spent two and a half years as a board member at scale-out storage and data protection vendor Quantum Computing.

Fuller purchased his stake in Symantec on June 27 and June 29. He bases his business operations out of Washington state.

Richard Hill

Stake In Symantec: 75,000 Shares, Purchased For $1.57 Million

Richard Hill become CEO of semiconductor manufacturer Novellus Systems in 1993 and chairman of the board in 1996, and held both positions until the company was acquired by Lam Research in 2012. More recently, he has served as chairman of Starboard-owned semiconductor producer Marvell Technology Group since May 2016.

Hill is also currently a board member of several other companies, including semiconductor packaging vendor Xperi since August 2012 (he has been chairman since March 2013); IT distributor Arrow Electronics since 2006; and chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) slurry supplier Cabot Microelectronics since June 2012.

Hill purchased his stake in Symantec on July 13 and Aug. 7. He bases his business operations out of Las Vegas.

Michael Strachan

Stake In Symantec: 5,534 Shares, Purchased For $110,000

Michael Strachan has served as a board member and audit committee chairman of Starboard-owned semiconductor producer Marvell Technology Group since May 2016. Previously, Strachan served as a board member of semiconductor designer at LSI Corp. from March 2009 until its acquisition by Avago Technologies in May 2014.

Strachan was employed by Ernst & Young from 1976 to 2008, and spent his final eight and a half years with the company overseeing its operations between San Jose, Calif., and Seattle. From July 2007 until December 2008, Strachan was a member of the company's America's Executive Board, which oversaw the firm's strategic initiatives in North and South America.

Strachan purchased his stake in Symantec on July 13 and Aug. 7. He bases his business operations out of California.