I’ve Built and Lead Service Provider Teams for Multi-Hundred-Million Dollar Companies in Network Security. Here’s Why I Joined Netskope

Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen the world of networking and cybersecurity change significantly. Today’s highly dynamic, highly distributed workforce needs to connect to data and applications in a secure way without impacting network performance, and it’s not possible to deliver that with rigid, hardware-based solutions. Considering how the next generation of networking and security is evolving, it’s clear to me that Netskope and its ability to provide flexible, scalable network security built for the use of cloud applications, will be key to securing this growing hybrid workforce.

Netskope has done an excellent job laying the groundwork, and is the only network security company that was built to be cloud-native from the ground up. Netskope has also made a significant investment in its NewEdge Network. However carriers are now refocusing on delivering world class networking whether that be private line, direct internet access or 5G and their number one priority is to drive consumption of these networks and offer value added services over the top.  This is where Netskope can offer a unique value proposition.  Because the New Edge network is built on bare metal these nodes can be embedded into the carriers network which fulfills the need to drive consumption of the network and in doing so expands Netskope’s global footprint for a true win/win partnership. This puts Netskope in an incredible position to support global partner carriers, and makes it a perfect fit for me to come to Netskope as Vice President of Channel Sales focused on Service Providers.

Whilst Netskope takes care of the infrastructure it frees up the Carrier to deliver rich value-added, frictionless SSE services to its customers.  These services include Next Generation policy management and configuration, managed XDR, Advanced Analytics and Data Protection. Regardless of the Network Access type these services allow our Carriers to deliver Secure Web Gateway, CASB and Network Private Access/ZTNA to their customers.  Carriers have had to adjust to their business models as their customers adopt SD-WAN and move from MPLS to Direct Internet Access. With the Netskope New Edge network embedded in their networks, carriers are able to offset the lower cost of fiber by offering services over the top and in doing so gain control back which allows them to support a customer’s digital transformation. These types of projects are typically year-long, if not multi-year, projects, and consulting-led engagements like this are where the carrier becomes a trusted partner in digital transformation of an enterprise. My role is to bring the carriers, Netskope’s strengths in delivering platform-based network security, and the cloud service providers together. And If we bring those elements together and offer them downstream to our respective enterprise customers, that’s a truly powerful message, and a powerful solution that can really drive that digital transformation.

Alongside the opportunity to help drive transformation with service providers and carriers, the culture at Netskope felt like the right fit for me as well. There tend to be two extremes when it comes to cybersecurity companies – you either have very technically focused companies where the leadership is primarily engineering folks or you have companies that are very sales and marketing driven. While I’ve worked for both kinds, and know their pros and cons, I believe that Netskope’s culture reflects a perfect balance between the two with exceptional leaders who have engineering, sales and marketing backgrounds.

I’m a sales guy at heart and I pride myself on identifying unique and differentiated technology to my partners. I’ve run multi-hundred million dollar sales organizations in the past with dozens of people, but my heart lies in innovation, value to my partners and building trusted teams from the ground up to support these partners. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish here at Netskope.