Category: Moving People

Exclusive network boss calls it quits

Exclusive network boss Graham Jones has confirmed that he will be retiring after spending 45 years in the IT industry.

Jones has worked at multiple companies during his career and most recently acted as UK and Ireland divisional director at Exclusive Networks.

But after nine years with the business, Jones said he has now decided to “hang up his boots” and retire immediately.

Confirming his retirement on LinkedIn, he said that he has had a “great ride” during his career and is “over the moon” that his “last gig” was with Exclusive Networks.

He said: “(There are) too many people to thank for making my career so fulfilling and enjoyable. At Exclusive we managed to show that value can be scaled and vars and vendors alike will pay a little more for real people who care and do a great job. It’s not all about price.”

Back-from-the-dead Comet appoints Lamb

Back-from-the-dead retailer Comet has announced that Shawn Lamb has been appointed to head up the business.

Comet was founded in 1933 and became a staple of the UK retail market before its demise in 2012 .

UK Computer Group, which is now known as the Misco Technologies Group, revived the name in 2019 having bought the rights from Deloitte, which was acting as liquidator.

Forrester McBain defects to Canalys

Forrester lead global analyst Jay McBain has confirmed he has defected to join rival Canalys, according to his Linkedin profile.

The channel guru will be Canalys’ chief analyst and lead its North America Research Programme while participating in wider worldwide research.

Canalys VP Channels Alex Smith said: “Jay is both a thought leader and challenger in the field of channels and ecosystems. We are delighted to have Jay join our growing team of analysts across the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe.”

James quits Computacenter

Computacenter’s group CCO Kevin James has exited the company after 32 “amazing” years.

James told his Linkedin friends that he wanted to spend more time with his family, a little more time on the golf course and “seeing much more of the world” following his departure from Computacenter.

James joined Computacenter in 1990 as a general manager/regional sales manager. He became director of industry and corporate in 2005, director of services and solutions in 2011 and UK managing director in 2015 before becoming group chief commercial officer in 2017.

NTT DATA UK loses CEO

NTT DATA UK announced that its current CEO, Simon Williams, will be exiting the business.

Williams has led NTT DATA UK for the past five years, more than doubling the size of the business and increasing its profitability by a factor of 10. He will remain as the CEO of NTT DATA UK until 31 March 2022.

Williams’ involvement with NTT DATA dates back to 2011 when the IT services provider acquired his former business, Value Team. He then went on to become Head of Telco, Media and Technology for NTT DATA UK and helped to create NTT DATA Digital, before becoming CEO of the organisation in 2017.

Distology hires for Darby as sales director

Security outfit Distology has hired Rob Darby as its sales director.

Darby brings 20 years of experience to the role and has worked across the tech sector – including for Pulsant, Ingram Micro and Comms-Care.  His role will be relationship management with partners and vendors and helping the business expand its team.

Darby said that the channel was his passion and has been the key focus of his career.

PubMatic expands EMEA management team

Digital advertising outfit PubMatic has expanded its EMEA leadership team.

Hitesh Bhatt has been promoted to the role of Senior Director, CTV/OTT, leading the rapidly growing CTV arm of the company’s business. PubMatic’s OTT/CTV global revenue grew by more than six times in the fourth quarter of 2021 over the fourth quarter of 2020 and now monetising OTT/CTV inventory from more than 167 publishers globally. Bhatt will report directly to Emma Newman, CRO, EMEA.

Jacqueline Boakye takes the role of Vice President, Customer Success, EMEA, and is now responsible for the strategic leadership of the EMEA customer success team that support PubMatic’s publisher clients. With consumers’ time increasingly fragmented across screens and channels, omnichannel solutions are becoming more important to publishers as they seek to maximise revenue. A key focus for Boakye will be helping to drive the adoption of PubMatic’s omnichannel solutions, including OpenWrap – a header bidding solution that drives incremental yield across all channels, including CTV.

HP announces new channel head

HP has named Neil MacDonald its new UK&I channel director tasked with “go-to-market” strategy and sales performance of HP’s print, personal systems, services and solutions.

The role also includes looking after the commercial, consumer and distribution sales teams, as well as the relationships with the vendor’s channel partners.

He replaces Neil Sawyer, who left the business late in 2021 to step into the role of UK&I managing director and general manager at Lenovo.

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CrowdStrike shuffles channel management

CrowdStrike is shuffling its channel leadership team.

The firm has announced the appointment of Michael Rogers as vice-president of global business development, channel and alliances.

Former channel head Matthew Polly is moving into the role of vice-president of North America mid-market sales, where he will continue to operate in a channel-friendly position.

Rogers is no stranger to the business, having previously been global vice-president, partner and alliance sales at CrowdStrike. His CV, which spans 25 years in the cyber security industry, also includes time in channel and partner roles at McAfee and Sophos.

Rogers said: “The difference with CrowdStrike – and why we’ve been able to bring together such an elite network of partners – is that we’ve always advocated for an ecosystem approach that puts customers at the centre of our programme.” 

Steel takes over Splunk

Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele is leaving security outfit to take over as Splunk’s new CEO.

Steele was the founding CEO of Proofpoint and has overseen the company’s growth from a startup to a publicly-traded security-as-a-service provider.

He will take over as permanent CEO on 11 April following Doug Merritt’s decision to step down in November last year, just five months after Splunk received a billion dollars of private equity funding from Silver Lake Investment.

“Splunk has built one of the most respected brands in tech and is at the forefront of security and observability. I’m honoured to join the company at such an important moment – for both Splunk and the industry. I’ve dedicated my career to helping companies around the world safeguard their data, systems and infrastructure, and know first-hand how critical Splunk’s products and solutions have become to customers as they navigate hybrid, multi-cloud environments with increasingly complex attacks and threat actors.”

Check Point’s new UK head heralds expansion

Israeli security outfit Check Point’s new UK head will grow the volume of business the security player does with its channel partners, the company has announced.

Adam Bradley has worked for Sophos, Appsense and Forcepoint as regional director for UK and Ireland.

Check Point said that UK companies experienced, on average, 399 cyber attacks per week last year, which was a 103 percent increase from 2020.

Earlier this month, Check Point launched its SMB Security Suite, which armed its channel with a package that includes a firewall, cloud email protection, and endpoint and mobile security. It is available in four options to appeal to a range of customer needs.

Rubrik hires Ghazal Asif

Data security vendor Rubrik has poached Google’s former customer solutions channel partnerships boss as its new vice president of global partners and alliances.

Ghazal Asif joins from Google where she was head of channel partners in EMEA for Google Customer Solutions, leading channel go-to-market strategy and execution for the region.

She has been senior vice president of worldwide channels at Cybereason, vice president of worldwide channels for GSP & cloud providers at AppDynamics, and director of global channel sales at Cisco Meraki.

Rubrik chief revenue office Brian McCarthy said: “We keep investing in the success of our extensive partner strategy and Ghazal’s leadership and channel experience will continue to fuel our data security growth. She will act as a catalyst for scaling our partner enablement and accelerating our go-to-market channel strategy around the world.”

 

Neil MacDonald runs HP’s UK and Ireland channel biz

HP has tipped Neil MacDonald to run its UK and Ireland channel business.

MacDonald has been with the HP business since 2011. He was the vendor’s consumer director for the UK and Ireland for almost five years before taking a new role in March 2020 as EU head of excellence for marketplaces and Amazon.

He will begin the new role today.

MacDonald will be responsible for go-to-market strategy and sales performance for HP’s print, personal systems, services and solutions business across the region, as well as leading the commercial, consumer and distribution sales teams along with the relationships with HP’s channel partners.

Fitzpatrick defects from Vole to Chipzilla

Intel has appointed Microsoft’s former general manager for worldwide partner sales to head up its own partner sales organisation.

Alyssa Fitzpatrick told her LinkedIn friends about her new role as the chip maker’s vice-president and general manager of global partner sales after six years with Microsoft.

Her responsibilities are listed as “leading the programmes, support, and end-to-end partner journey under the Intel Partner Alliance with a focus on ISVs, systems integrators and cloud partners”.

Anzu.io hires Blight

Chris Blight has joined in-game advertising company Anzu.io to lead its global demand team.

Blight has been part of the UK ad industry for 18 years, having worked as UK Commercial Director at Opera Mediaworks and Sales Director at Autotrader, and spent significant time working at various titles across Haymarket Publishing and Reed Business Information.

He was part of the original team from 4th Screen Advertising acquired by Opera in 2012 and was instrumental in itsrapid growth ahead of the surge in mobile advertising.