Sophos Adds to Channel Management, Creates Cloud Unit

Security vendor Sophos has added to its channel management team, hiring Kendra Krause as vice president of channel sales, Americas and leading Sophos’s Channel First initiatives in the Americas. Bill Lucchini has been appointed as general manager of Sophos Cloud, the company’s new Cloud business unit. Here are the details.

Sophos said Krause's main objective will be to grow the channel by recruiting new partners, while empowering and enabling existing partners for further success. Krause came to Sophos from unified threat management (UTM) provider Fortinet, where she was vice president of channel sales since 2007. She has also held channel sales roles at both SonicWall and WatchGuard, as well as sales and product marketing roles with computer and networking resellers.

"Sophos has a huge opportunity with partners and I want to make sure they have the proper tools and programs to be successful in their business," she said via email. "This equates to Sophos success… a collaboration and a win/win."

Sophos Cloud General Manager Bill Lucchini
Sophos CEO Kris Hagerman said many partners and customers are interested in how the company is leveraging cloud-based technology. The company said via email that Lucchini will be working on overall cloud strategy.

Lucchini previously served as COO of OnForce where he was responsible for all day-to-day operations for the cloud-based technology talent marketplace . Prior to OnForce, Lucchini spent 17 years at Intuit where he held a variety of leadership roles for several of the company's software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. He also led Intuit’s Mid-Market Division where he launched Intuit’s first VAR channel organization.

"Bringing Sophos’ complete security portfolio to the cloud promises to be a strategic differentiator for the company, and will dramatically simplify the delivery and administration of IT security for time-strapped enterprises and MSPs," said Lucchini in a statement. "I’m thrilled to join Sophos and help the company leverage the power and flexibility of the cloud to fully deliver on its vision to ‘make security simple.’"

Can we expect more managed services news from Sophos in the weeks ahead as the new channel executives settle into their roles? We've got a feeling there may be some news coming out of the company's global partner conferences next month.