Stritt appointment adds to momentum at SentinelOne

SentinelOne hopes that its decision to appoint a fresh face as senior director of channel EMEA will spur its plans to widen its partner base.

The firm has turned to cyber industry veteran Roland Stritt to drive the channel with a brief to increase growth and deliver value for those that sign up to work with the endpoint protection specialist.

The decision to bring Stritt on board is one of a series of moves the firm has made in recent weeks to add depth and muscle to its business. It recently secured $200m in funding, making it clear that some of that would be spent on channel activities, with the business hitting a valuation of $1bn.

The last six weeks have also seen SentinelOne appoint Daniel Kollberg as vice-president EMEA as it continued to bolster its management team.

Last month, the vendor also launched its Singularity Platform, which pulled together a number of features into a single proposition, including endpoint protection and response, cloud workload protection and internet of things (IoT) security.

“Leveraging AI [artificial intelligence] to process enormous amounts of data in real time allows our customers to stay secure from all vectors of attack,” said Tomer Weingarten, CEO and co-founder of SentinelOne.

Referencing the latest executive appointment, Kollberg said the company wanted to bring on board someone with channel experience who could increase support for partners.

“As we step up our presence in EMEA with a bigger team and an even sharper focus on the quality and support of our partner base, we wanted the skills and experience of a proven channel operator like Roland,” he said.

“There is increasing uncertainty around other vendors in the endpoint security market and, with Roland’s channel leadership, we intend to help partners take advantage with extra support around our latest AI-driven product innovations.”

Kollberg added: “We are building a lot of momentum and our new multi-tier partner programme is designed to help partners achieve more, realise greater margins and enable their customers to defend against every attack at every stage.”

Stritt’s CV includes time working across the security industry, with spells at Palo Alto Networks and most recently as director of EMEA channels at Rubrik.

“The SentinelOne sales growth through 2019 and into 2020 has been remarkable, particularly in EMEA, and the timing is right to introduce a renewed partner programme that recognises the expertise and commitment that existing and new partners bring to the table, and gives them all the support they need to be successful,” he said.

The company’s actions of the past few weeks have not gone unnoticed by the vendor’s partners, with some referring to a sense of “momentum”.

Jason Simper, global head of business development at Exclusive Networks, said: “The appointment of Roland Stritt further reinforces SentinelOne’s commitment to the channel and its ambition in driving significant growth opportunities for partners. We look forward to continuing our successful partnership and achieving mutual success.”