Symantec 2013 Annual Report Download - page 7

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Dear Fellow Shareholders:
As your Board of Directors, our primary focus is to create long-term shareholder value.
Key components of our responsibilities include best in class governance, comprising of
Board’s structure and diversity, oversight of business strategies, and assuring executive
compensation is aligned with performance.
Board Independence & Diversity: As part of our commitment to governance best
practices and to enhance the Board’s independent oversight of the Company’s senior
management team; we split the roles of Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive
Ofcer. We appointed independent director Dan Schulman to the Chairman position.
In addition, we plan to expand the diversity of our Board by our nomination of two
female directors who bring unique expertise in cyber security and large scale company
change management. We believe these changes will enrich the board’s ability to oversee
Symantec’s long-term growth and success.
Focus on Strategy and Performance: We provide advice to management on our
strategic direction which requires a balance between risk and return in strategic plans,
operations, and resource allocation. In scal 2013, we oversaw the development of a new
strategy to provide improved, long-term performance by the Company to increase value for
our shareholders. This included our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders by
initiating our rst quarterly cash dividend in addition to continuing to repurchase shares.
Executive Compensation: Our focus is to continue our practice of compensating
our executives based on performance. In scal 2013, we introduced performance-
contingent stock units as a component to our CEO’s compensation, which directly ties
his compensation to an increasing stock price that provides a tangible value to our
shareholders. In addition, we made the following changes to our executive compensation
program for scal 2014:
•
Our long-term compensation will be comprised entirely of long-term equity incentive
awards to better align the interests of our executives with those of our shareholders.
•
We adjusted our peer group to include companies that are more similar to us in terms of
complexity, global reach, revenue, and market capitalization based on feedback obtained
from our ongoing engagement with shareholders and advisers.
•
We restructured our executive annual incentive bonus to place more emphasis on
performance. Our cash annual incentive awards are based on achievement of non-GAAP
operating income as modied by achievement of targeted revenue.
The Board is fully committed to fullling its duciary obligations to all shareholders.
We thank you for your support and we believe that Symantec’s strategy will reward your
continued support.
Regards, the Board of Directors of Symantec Corporation
Daniel H. Schulman Stephen M. Bennett Michael A. Brown Frank E. Dangeard
Geraldine B. Laybourne David L. Mahoney Robert S. Miller V. Paul Unruh