Bjorn Engelhardt – Asia's security guru

Bjorn Engelhardt is a man of the world. A Baby Boomer with Y-Gen energy and ICT expertise, Engelhardt - as his name may imply - is Scandinavian at heart. Born in Denmark, he moved to Norway as a child and then settled in Australia at the age of 11. Engelhard will tell you though that he is also Australian at heart, quoting his vast knowledge of cricket, rugby, Australian music and other Aussie cultural pillars as proof.

A self-confessed gadget geek, Engelhardt has made the decision to snowboard his way across the rugged glaciers of Kashmir next year - an adventure hardly in parallel with the image of a person hoarding, and continuing to accumulate, pieces of electronic equipment and hardware, from an early age. But this is Engelhardt, a business leader of myriad and diametric passions – passions that drive his team and his highly regarded security and compliance practice at Symantec Hosted Services Group.

As Asia Pacific & Japan Vice President at SHS, Engelhardt is responsible for managing and growing Symantec’s hosted services throughout this region. His energy in what he does is infectious. Engelhardt’s PR and marketing team look on in awe as he speaks of his vision – deeply inclusive as always – for the development and growth of SHS. “I would like to think that my leadership style is very collaborative, I believe in delegating authority. I like to engage with people, gain their ideas and spread mine. I’m fortunate in that I have a group of motivated people with which to work, and this will only lead to bigger and better things for our shared vision.” Engelhardt believes that it is his love of the outdoor life, photography, cycling, golf and yes, his real passion – snowboarding - that has produced a desire to bring camaraderie into the workplace. “Meeting new people and promulgating new ideas applies to leisure life as much as work life,” he adds.

With over 20 years experience (eight at Symantec), Engelhardt has used his time at SHS to lead a small startup group of six people and less than $1 million in revenue to over $60 million in revenue, propelling his product set to the rank of fourth in the entire company.

“I’ve always had the role of running with new emerging technologies,” Engelhardt remembers. “I wrote a book about Apple programming in 1984 and started my career with a small company in the UK, producing what were then new and innovative products and services such as email archiving. My real interest rests in introducing new technologies to market in the different cultures and then taking these technologies to these new heights.”

With Engelhardt at the helm, Symantec Hosted Services is perfectly positioned as a cybercrime mercenary, fighting its customers’ battles and winning. Coupled with Engelhardt’s vast expertise, SHS is poised for a major growth spurt. It does security well, it is specialist, in an area of ICT where specialisation counts for everything. “Our reach is huge,” concludes Engelhardt, “So there is no gap in our platforms, our security products talk to each other. Add this to our global intelligence network, which really is the crux, and threats can be defeated before they acquire any meaningful momentum.”

Engelhardt’s crusade is driven by his characteristic passion and enthusiasm, and SHS and more broadly, the world of cyber security, is certainly better for it. At least if Engelhardt is hard to define, there is no difficulty in defining his energy and acute vision for where he, his team and the ICT security industry as a whole is heading.