Jobs Carousel Turns As Channel Players Make Strategic Moves
Companies look at game changing strategies by adding new players or shuffling the pack
A number of tech firms are making strategic hires to boost their presence in the channel. Websense, Toughshield, Eaton, UKFast, and Netwrix have all rung changes to improve their marketing muscle.
Security vendor Websense has hired a former RSA man to run the firm’s worldwide channels. Shawn Pearson has been appointed as vice president of worldwide channel sales with a brief to design and implement channel strategies that transform the security company from a transactional-based firm to a value-add operation to support its expanded portfolio.
John McCormack, Websense chief executive said Pearson’s track record would make him “a valuable asset” to its channel team.
Summer changes
Rugged portable device vendor Toughshield has appointed a couple of ex-Honeywell people. Mark Davis has been named as strategic planning director while Paul Murphy becomes the firm’s European service manager.
Both join the firm from stints at Honeywell Scanning & Mobility. Davis was EMEA market development manager at Honeywell while Murphy has previous customer service experience with the same firm. Davis will report to Stig Hansen, commercial director, while Murphy will report to Gabriel Tran, product planning and development director.
Power management company Eaton has hired Kurt McMaken EMEA president, succeeding Yannis Tsavalas who is moving to a new role as senior vice president of Electrical Sector strategic initiatives. Prior to this appointment, McMaken served as vice president, finance and planning, for the Electrical Sector’s EMEA Region.
Meanwhile, hosting and colocation firm UKFast has appointed Lizzi Long as data centre sales manager. The ex-Telecity employee will carry out UKFast’s plans to boost carrier-neutral networks, attracting more carriers to the area in a bid to boost Manchester’s connectivity.
“I am looking forward to bringing even more improvements to Manchester’s connectivity, filling our new facilities and offering colocation services on a whole new level,” she said.
Netwrix has appointed five new resellers as it expands its UK channel to meet the demand for configuration auditing solutions. Armana, Cygnia, Digital Pathways, Set-3 and Softcat bolster Netwrix’s channel presence with their knowledge of security and compliance market and strong customer relationships across the public and private sectors.
“Netwrix is 100 percent committed to the channel and we are looking for new partners to further accelerate sales in the UK where we achieved 70 percent growth last year,” said Aidan Simister, Regional Manager for Europe at Netwrix. “All our resellers are solutions focused rather than product driven businesses and recognise the opportunities presented by Netwrix configuration auditing tools – particularly as an alternative approach to SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) systems.”