Technology >> CEO Interviews >> September 3, 2003
ROBERT THOMAS is President and Chief Executive Officer of NetScreen
Technologies, Inc. Mr. Thomas joined NetScreen in 1998, bringing more
than 20 years of management experience in high technology to his role as
President and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to NetScreen, he spent nine
years at Sun Microsystems, where he was General Manager of
Intercontinental Operations. He attended Adelaide University where he
completed an Honors Science degree, majoring in Mathematics. He served
two years with the National Service of the Royal Australian Army and was
appointed to the rank of Lieutenant. On leaving the service, he joined
the IT division of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the largest bank
in the country, where he became a lead systems programmer supporting the
operating systems of the bank's IBM mainframes. In 1978 he joined the
Sydney office of ICL (International Computers Ltd.) as an area support
manager. In 1980 Mr. Thomas moved into the mainframe sales division and
won the 'Rookie of The Year,' significantly exceeding his target quota.
Mr. Thomas exceeded quota in 1981 and 1982 and was appointed as the New
South Wales Sales Manager in 1983. In 1984, he was appointed National
Marketing Manager. In 1985, he left ICL to take up the role of Northern
Regional Manager of Fujitsu Australia (then known as FACOM). He left
Fujitsu to become Director of Marketing for Sun Microsystems Australia
and later transferred to Sun US to become international operations
director of SunSoft. Editor's Note: Original interview date 5/12/03. Profile
Mr. Thomas: We are in the network security space and we design,
manufacture and sell security appliances and systems. In fact,
