Data Security Provider Fortanix Hires Alliances, Partnerships Leader

Data security provider Fortanix has hired Iulia Stefoi-Silver, previously with BigID, as vice president of strategic alliances and partnerships.

Stefoi-Silver previously was vice president of technology alliances at BigID. Before that, she led ISV partner strategy, and developed partner programs to drive go-to-market activities at Ionic Security (acquired by Twilio).

She also previously held product leadership positions at VMware, Airwatch (acquired by VMware) and Nokia.

Fortanix's Iulia Stefoi-Silver

“In the new role, I am responsible for leading the alliances team at Fortanix,” Stefoi-Silver said. “This covers our strategic alliance partners, technology partners that we are integrated with or that have embedded the Fortanix technology into their products, our strategic relationships with the cloud service providers, and also growing our relationships with the GSIs.”

Data Security Provider a Channel-First Company

Fortanix is leveraging the channel and the partner ecosystem to differentiate and capture market share with and through partners, Stefoi-Silver said.

“Fortanix is a channel-first company and having a robust partner program that enables selling with and through our partners is paramount to our success,” she said. “But beyond that, we see our partners as strategic allies in educating the market, and helping our customers with modernizing their cybersecurity posture for the current and emerging cybersecurity landscape.”

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Stefoi-Silver’s top three priorities at Fortanix are sales enablement for ecosystem selling; building the partner program into a partner "business"; and forging trustworthy relationships.

“Technology ecosystems are redefining the partnerships industry and reshaping how companies are going to market,” she said. “Having a robust program in place is paramount to driving partner revenue and providing us with the ability to focus on the right partnerships for us and our business.”

Challenges Ahead

One of the biggest challenges in the partnerships industry, in general, is placing the right bets and sales execution with partners, Stefoi-Silver said. The benefits go beyond straightforward channel partnerships. Deals close faster, at a lower cost and offer increased value.

“Also, co-selling benefits everyone within the ecosystem,” she said. “Identifying the right partners and ideal partner profile, and then aligning the sellers behind those joint pursuits are paramount to a successful partnerships program. And this is what I am here to tackle alongside the team.”

The data security provider also has appointed Linda Chen to chief marketing officer, Anuj Jaiswal to vice president of products, and Andy Buckland to vice president and general manager of EMEA.

Related:Fortanix Partners Get First Partner Program with New Channel Leader

Chen most recently was chief marketing and strategy officer at Cyara, and Jaiswal was vice president of engineering at Embrace. Buckland was senior director of the EMEA region for VMware software-defined edge and SASE.

Fortanix DSM Now on AWS Marketplace

In addition, Fortanix announced that its flagship solution, Data Security Manager (DSM), is now available in Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace, a digital catalog with thousands of software listings from ISVs.

Fortanix DSM is a unified data-first security platform that protects sensitive data across AWS, hybrid and private cloud environments from a single pane of glass. It allows customers to mitigate security, privacy and data residency risks.