Olivier Le Moal - Fotolia
Channel roundup: Who's gone where?
Another busy week in the channel as some fresh faces join various resellers and vendors to try and keep the growth flowing
The Easter school holidays are over and it's time to knuckle down and concentrate on hitting those Q2 targets. With that in mind there have been several executive appointments this week designed to help support those growth ambitions.
Commercial
The business services specialist has appointed Richard Blundell as IT services divisional director. He has a long track record working in the managed services and SaaS arena with a CV that includes time at MessageLabs and Star Internet. He joins a firm that is looking to double turnover in the next two to three years, building on its position serving the legal and education markets. “There is an unmet need for managed service providers with a conscience,” said Blundell “I am a personal advocate of ‘profit for good’ and can’t think of any business services company in the UK that addresses this more effectively than Commercial.
Purpose Software
The business management application provider has brought Howard Clark on board as sales manager. His brief includes coordinating all the sales and marketing around the firm's FORZA recently launched SAP Business One based ERP platform. He joins the firm from Oracle and prior to that working the ERP and CRM world for Exact Software. "His extensive experience of working with ERP platforms from some of the world’s leading technology vendors will be invaluable as we introduce managed service providers and print resellers to the benefits that an integrated data platform can bring to their business operations," said Mike Burke, managing director of Purpose Software.
Fidelis Cybersecurity
Nick Lantuh, former founder and president of NetWitness and executive chairman of eSentire, has joined the company as president and CEO. In his last role he helped eSentire grow and eventually land a sale to Warburg Pincus. Lantuh will succeed interim president and CEO, John McCormack, who will return to the chairman of the board role at Fidelis. “Enterprises are challenged by the complexity of managing many disparate security tools – which ultimately means threats aren’t detected early enough, putting sensitive data at risk,” he added “The continued growth potential of Fidelis is extremely high as the company protects data for many of the world’s largest brands and government organisations by automating detection and response across networks, endpoints and cloud environments.”
Roger Coles has become director of alliances & channels EMEA joining the firm from BI player Sisense. Prior to that he ran the global SAP relationship for HPE Software. His career includes plenty of channel interaction and when he was at TIBCO he helped pull together a rebuilt partner approach across EMEA. He was UK channel director at one point for Sage. He joins the firm at a time when it has stated ambitions to grow the business and increase the number of partners it works with across Europe.
Gigamon
The network visibility specialist is aiming to double the number of focused partners it works with over the course of this year. To support that ambition the firm has turned to former Juniper vp Bruno Durand to take the tole of regional vice president of southern and central Europe. “As a company, we are committed to driving growth and expanding our footprint in southern and central Europe and we are delighted to have Bruno on board. We are confident that his leadership will help us to achieve our increasingly ambitious goals." said Gerard Allison, vice president of EMEA at Gigamon.
