Kaspersky North American President, Channel Chief Have Left Security Vendor

Within the past few weeks, Kaspersky Lab lost both Christopher Doggett, its North American managing director and president, and John Murdock, its vice president of SMB and channel sales, CRN has learned.

Kaspersky confirmed the departures in an email to CRN.

Doggett left the Moscow-based company this month to become senior vice president of global sales at Carbonite, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had most recently served as Kaspersky's managing director for North America, a role he had held since April 2015. Before that, he was senior vice president of corporate sales for North America and vice president of channel sales for North America. In an email statement to CRN, Chairman and CEO Eugene Kaspersky praised Doggett’s contributions to the security vendor.

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’During his tenure with Kaspersky Lab, Chris was a strong and effective leader, and we wish him well in his next endeavor,’ Kaspersky said.

Kaspersky said that, in the interim, Chief Business Officer Garry Kondakov will supervise the management of North American business operations. Neither Doggett nor Carbonite officials replied to requests for comment.

Murdock also left the company this month to become vice president of sales at Centage, a cloud software company that focuses on the finance industry. Kaspersky said in a statement to CRN that Murdock will be replaced by Leslie Bois, who will now serve as vice president of channel sales for Kaspersky Lab North America, based in Woburn, Mass. Bois most recently served as AVP of channel sales for North America, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In an interview with CRN, Murdock said his and Doggett’s departures from Kaspersky were purely coincidental

"[Leaving Kaspersky for Centage] was a tough decision because I really loved working there and it was a great company and great people, but a great opportunity emerged and you have to go chase them," Murdock said. "I joined a great team at a time when I think they are ready to break out of the gate and grow even faster and really take some share in a fast-growing market.

In his new role, Murdock is responsible for running the company’s growing sales organization, he said.

A large part of that growth focus in 2016 is the company’s channel, Murdock said, which is an area his background as a channel chief will come in handy.

’As companies grow, you have to put different things in place to help scale. Channel is a big part of that and we have some really cool things planned for next year,’ Murdock said.

Prior to joining Kaspersky in 2014, Murdock held roles at Juniper, where he most notably served as senior director of worldwide channels.

PUBLISHED DEC. 15, 2015