Where are they now?

Ed Macnair, CEO, Overtis Systems

Last year didn’t pan out how Ed Macnair had expected. The IT industry veteran had intended to take a year off, but an opportunity arose which he couldn’t resist: an investor asked him to advise on strategy at IT security firm, Overtis.

“The products and approach that Overtis was developing were so completely different, it blew me away. I had never seen anything quite like it. So when they asked me to head up the company, it was a very easy decision,” he says.

Overtis combines virtual and physical security systems to monitor and protect high-value and sensitive information. Education is central to its unique offer. “The majority of security breaches are accidental so if you can educate users and warn them when they are about to do something that is potentially dangerous, you really do reduce the number of breaches.”



Before becoming CEO of Overtis, Macnair had spent 20 years in the IT industry, in senior management positions at companies including IBM, Symantec and MessageLabs and, most recently, software firm Marshal.

He joined the latter in 2002 to run its European arm and three years later led a management buy-out with advised by Baker Tilly.

“I had a very positive experience working with Baker Tilly on the last MBO,” he says. So good, in fact, that he is working with the firm again. “I’m just starting a fundraising round to finance Overtis’s expansion,” he explains. Currently, Overtis operates in the UK and Europe, but Macnair plans to extend further into Europe, the Middle East and Africa and then into the US.

Are these expansion plans an indicator that the IT security sector has weathered the downturn? Although the technology industry endured a rough ride last year, security remained buoyant, says Macnair, “because security threats haven’t diminished. If anything, they have increased. Security is not optional; it’s a must have.”