Columbia-based American open-source software firm Sourcefire has named John C Burris its new chief executive officer, effective 14 July.

Burris, who joined Sourcefire's board in March, is head of worldwide sales and services at Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix Systems. Sourcefire CEO Wayne Jackson said in February that he would step down, with the company saying he was leaving to pursue other opportunities. Upon the completion of the transition, Burris will succeed Jackson as CEO, and remain a member of Sourcefire's board of directors.

On behalf of Sourcefire's board of directors, chairman Joseph R Chinnici stated, "John is a seasoned executive with a proven track record of helping public technology companies achieve their full potential. He brings to Sourcefire a combination of global execution, operational discipline, and inspirational leadership needed for accelerated and profitable growth."

Chinnici added, "I want to take this opportunity to thank CEO Wayne Jackson for his vision, expertise and tireless commitment to Sourcefire. We greatly appreciate Wayne's continued efforts through the transition process and wish him all the best in the years ahead. Today's announcement is the culmination of a thoughtful and disciplined process of succession planning."

Burris has worked for Citrix since 1999. As head of worldwide sales and services, he helped grow annual revenue from $470 million to $1.4 billion. Before joining Citrix, Burris worked for Lucent Technologies and AT&T Corp.

This change in management occurs immediately after the company rejected an unsolicited takeover offer from California-based Barracuda Networks that valued Sourcefire at $188 million. The latter's board rejected the offer saying it "substantially undervalues" the company.

Martin Roesch, the creator of SNORT, the open source technology for intrusion detection and prevention, founded Sourcefire in 2001.

The company's initial growth was funded through four separate rounds of financing raising a total of $56.5 million from venture investors such as Sierra Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, Core Capital Partners, Inflection Point Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital, L.P., a venture fund whose general partner is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wasatch Advisors, Inc.

In March 2007, Sourcefire completed an initial public offering raising $86.3 million. The sole book-running manager of the offering was Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated. Lehman Brothers Inc. acted as co-lead manager and UBS Securities LLC and Jefferies & Company, Inc. served as co-managers.

However, since the IPO when the stock listed at $15, the share price has decreased dramatically to around $8 today.