Sophos Hires Dell SonicWall Veteran To Manage North America Sales

The England-based security firm named sales veteran John Keenan as vice president of sales for North America. The executive will manage sales of the company's endpoint security suite, its mobile and server software and its unified threat management appliance.

Michael Valentine, senior vice president of sales for Sophos, said the move would help ensure continued growth in Sophos' North American business and comes at a time when the security firm is web-enabling its product portfolio beginning with its endpoint security suite. He told CRN that the company is taking its time to roll out cloud-enabled versions of its products to ensure that it is being done correctly.

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"Now they're looking with more respect to the products that we're bringing down the road and saying that we're really doing it right," Valentine said. "We have the same margins and deal registration and deal protection with the cloud offering as we do with our on-premise."

Keenan spent 13 years with SonicWall, where he most recently built a new sales organization for midmarket accounts and developed the division's channel strategy. At SonicWall, he was previously responsible for North American distributor relationships. He accepted a 2013 Channel Champion award earlier this year, clinching a financial satisfaction subcategory win in Network Security Software.

In a statement, Keenan said Sophos' message of keeping security deployments and management simple resonates with small and midsize businesses and solution providers.

Sophos' sales are 100 percent channel-driven. Earlier this month, the company won the 2013 CRN Annual Report Card in the Network Security Appliances category.

The company also recently unveiled Complete MSP Security, a program that ties together the company's UTM appliance, its endpoint software and SaaS-based mobile device security platform. The program is supported by a utility pay-as-you-go approach. Sophos' Americas Channel Chief Kendra Krause said the company is boosting its lead generation capabilities and giving MSPs their own dedicated line to support engineers.

Krause told CRN that the company is retooling its deal registration program to make it deal margin protection. Sophos is also in the middle of a compliance audit, reviewing resellers against certification and revenue goals.

PUBLISHED AUG. 26, 2013