The path to the C-suite often follows a familiar blueprint. For Gen Digital CEO Vincent Pilette, it was anything but. Pilette says he never had CEO aspirations, much preferring the role of CFO. So he did what few would: Early in his career as a financial analyst at a Fortune 500 IT company, he told the company’s then-CFO he wanted her job, he says. But when she outlined a rigid 15-year succession plan, he walked. “I don’t have that much time,” he told Fortune.
Though he’d only overseen a sliver of financial operations at the time—far from the typical CFO résumé stacked with experience across accounting, FP&A, and M&A—he began pursuing finance chief roles at smaller public companies. Titles never defined him, he says. Impact did.
After “hundreds of nos,” including an initial rejection from Electronics for Imaging, he eventually landed the CFO seat there in 2011. Two years later, he joined Logitech, where working under CEO Bracken Darrell reshaped his view of financial leadership as a blend of fiscal discipline and operational execution to drive growth. Pilette, whose work at Logitech blended both financial responsibilities and internal operations, began to embrace the CFO role not only as a financial steward but as a catalyst for value creation and operational change, he says.
Then came the unexpected. Recruited to join cyber security company Symantec as CFO in 2019, Pilette says he arrived on the very day the CEO was fired. What followed was a crash course in crisis leadership. He led the split and sale of half the business the same year, with the remainder branded as NortonLifeLock. Months later, in a twist of executive musical chairs, he was tapped as CEO.
Under Pilette’s leadership, NortonLifeLock merged with Avast in 2022 to form Gen Digital, a cyber security giant now serving nearly 500 million users. With a market cap north of $17 billion, Gen Digital recently acquired fintech firm MoneyLion to broaden its consumer security offerings. And it landed at No. 840 on the 2024 Fortune 1000.
Pilette says his unconventional climb is proof there’s no single route to the top. “Too many people feel there is one recipe,” he says. “But there isn’t.” He became a CFO without the usual credentials. He then became a CEO without chasing the title, driven instead by curiosity, discipline, and a relentless focus on value, he says.
His path suggests that sometimes, the fastest way up is the willingness to first go sideways.
Lily Mae Lazarus
lily.lazarus@fortune.com
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