McAfee today said it hired Peter Leav, former CEO of BMC Software, to replace its CEO Chris Young who has led the security software firm since it spun out of Intel in 2016.

The timing is significant. It comes as McAfee is reportedly mulling either an initial public offering or a sale. Over the summer, reports surfaced that McAFee was preparing for an IPO that could value the company at more than $8 billion. The security vendor was also a rumored acquisition target for Thoma Bravo before the private equity firm bought Sophos.

Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, says the CEO hire signals McAfee wants to sell rather than go public.

“If they hired Peter Leav they are setting up to sell,” Kerravala said. “He’s done a tremendous job of completely revamping the structure of his last two companies and making them more operationally efficient. If they wanted to IPO, they would have hired somebody who was more of a visionary. With Peter, he’s an operations machine. There may be nobody better at it than him. If they want to sell, he’s certainly a good fit.”

Leav will officially move into the CEO role on Feb. 3, and Young will remain at McAfee in an advisory role. Young will also become a senior advisor at TPG Capital, which acquired a majority stake in the security company from Intel.

Prior to joining BMC Software, Leav served as president and CEO of video and content developer Polycom. He also held executive roles at NCR Corporation and Motorola. Leav also serves on the boards of Box and Proofpoint.

“I am delighted to be joining McAfee at this exciting time for the company and am looking forward to working with the team to pursue the significant growth opportunities ahead,” Leav said in a prepared statement. “McAfee is one of the largest, most important cybersecurity brands in the world, with a commitment to innovation and excellence.”

During its four years as a standalone security company, McAfee has struggled to make the transition from a consumer endpoint business to an enterprise security powerhouse. But it has made significant moves in this direction over the past year, including new tools and a strategy to unify it legacy endpoint security business with its newer cloud portfolio. Last month it added a new container security product that integrates with McAfee’s cloud access security broker (CASB) and cloud security posture management (CSPM) technology.