Patrick Evans

Regional Director, Symantec Africa

Work at Symantec

How long have you been working for Symantec and how did you join?

Patrick Evans is the regional director of Symantec Africa, having managed the company’s South African office since July 2001, when Symantec acquired the security portion of his business – Foster Melliar, where Patrick was a major shareholder and CEO of the company. The acquisition of Foster Melliar followed on from the recent acquisition Symantec made of Axent, of which Foster Melliar held the exclusive distributor rights in the country. During his time at Symantec, Evans has been responsible for driving market awareness of Internet Security within the country and across the region; working closely with various industry leaders across ISPs, enterprises and small businesses to build awareness of Internet security issues. Today, Patrick heads up Symantec South Africa, Africa, and the Indian Ocean Islands

Evans has contributed greatly to the development of the security landscape in South Africa and Africa, having commenced his career in IT when he was only 17 years old. His over 30 years experience began with him starting his career as an IT developer and programmer. In 1990, Evans decided to start his own business specialising in IT Security and ITIL, later acquired by Symantec. He has a deep passion for security and is focused on providing consumers and businesses with accurate and continuous information on how to keep their technology secure in an ever changing and threatening IT environment. 

Today, Evans’ key vision for the region understands that Africa and the Islands are a combination of first and third world economies and consist of a number of culture and economic diversities.  While South Africa is a mature emerging market in terms of the utilization and adoption of technologies - both existing and new - Africa and the other regions are battling with piracy and infrastructure challenges.  However, the opportunity exists in assisting the regions, which are readily accessing the Internet and transacting over it, as well as have wide-scale adoption of mobile phones, to create a channel that has representation on the ground to target large companies through mid-market named accounts, which is strongly supported with consulting services.

What gives you the most satisfaction in your job and w hat is your most memorable experience with Symantec?

Symantec is a company of diversity and the fact that the company continually respects and embraces diversity in all its forms makes Symantec unique. Today, our company is not only led by people who understand the unique requirements of our global footprint, but truly embrace what it means to be an internationally diverse organization.

Back in 2001, Symantec was a company of less than 1,000 people in sales and revenues of less than 1 billion dollars and embraced a spirit of agility and entrepreneurship.  Today, with revenues over $5 billion and a workforce of over 17,500 the company is still able to respond quickly on the ground, attract the best people wherever we are and in any situation – which is not the case for many of our competitors who are hindered by bureaucracy and a lack of agility.

Each region in Symantec is unique, and our leadership understands that those on the ground have the best insight into growing the company and helping to build on its strategy and go to market plans – as these are so different for each country and region, due to the distinctiveness of each market.