It's changing of the guard time at F-Secure Networks and eEye Digital Security. The two security companies in the past few days separately announced they've moved their founders and CEOs to chairman of the board and have named new CEOs.

F-Secure's founder and CEO Risto Siilasmaa and eEye's founder and CEO and CTO Firas Bushnaq are both stepping down from the helms of their companies but staying involved as chairs of their boards.

Kimmo Alkio, former vice president of consulting and integration at Nokia, becomes CEO of F-Secure on Nov. 6. eEye announced today that COO Ross Brown officially became CEO in June, and Marc Maiffret, co-founder and chief hacking officer for eEye, is now officially CTO and chief hacking officer for the company. eEye's Brown also announced that Kamal Arafeh has joined the company as senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, replacing Bob Worley, who had left eEye earlier for another post.

"Our products have succeeded well with our customers, but as a company, we weren't putting in place the processes to deliver" and achieve the potential growth, eEye's Brown said in an interview with Dark Reading. "We're dealing with a leveraging issue."

Meanwhile, F-Secure's new CEO Alkio is no stranger to F-Secure. He had been COO of F-Secure until March 2005 when he left for Nokia. And former chairman of the board Pertti Ervi becomes deputy chairman. The soon-to-be-former CEO, Siilasmaa, plans to launch a startup.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading