Ivanti Promotes Avaya, CA Technologies Channel Vet to CEO

Ivanti has appointed Avaya and CA Technologies alum Dennis Kozak as its new CEO effective Jan. 1.

Kozak has been serving as Ivanti’s COO since April of 2022. He succeeds Jeff Abbott, who will remain on the company’s board of directors.

Prior to joining Ivanti, Kozak served in leadership roles at Avaya, including senior vice president of strategic operations, global cloud and channel sales. Before that, he spent 22 years with CA Technologies, now a Broadcom company. There, he led several organizations such as global sales, global channel sales and strategy, and sales operations, as well as a global business transformation.

Kozak’s Plans as Ivanti’s New CEO

Kozak tells Channel Futures as COO, his experience has helped Ivanti’s customers and partners achieve their business, IT and security goals.

“In the role of CEO, I will continue to do that and make decisions with their best interests in mind,” he said. “I am really excited about the opportunity to lead the team at Ivanti, and I consider our partners to be a vital part of that team. I value our partnerships and want to continue to provide unique opportunities for their success. I am grateful to Jeff for his leadership over the past five years and look forward to his continued service on our board of directors.

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... Once I transition into this new position," Kozak added, "I plan to continue our business transformation to a SaaS-first business delivered via the Ivanti Neurons platform."

Kozak said his past experience with Avaya and CA Technologies will be useful as Ivanti’s new CEO.

“Throughout my career, my broad experience across global sales, channel, strategy, operations and SaaS business transformations has helped me become an effective cross-functional leader,” he said. “These are all very relevant to the Ivanti team as we prepare for the next chapter in our strategy.”

Significant Demand for Ivanti’s Platform

Ivanti’s research indicates significant demand for unified security and IT solutions, Kozak said.

“Ivanti’s Neurons platform is designed specifically for CIOs and CISOs,” he said. “This platform provides comprehensive software solutions that scale with organizations' evolving needs, empowering IT and security teams to enable, secure and enhance employee experiences. My primary goal is to fulfill our vision of helping partners and customers proactively reduce security risk, thereby driving the success of the everywhere work model. Partners will profit from this strategy by being able to provide both software solutions and additional services.”

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Ivanti's Jeff Abbott

“Dennis has led our sales, marketing and operations organizations through a period of rapid expansion with four acquisitions, delivering on our vision of the market’s first purpose-built solution for CIOs and CISOs — all while generating tremendous SaaS growth,” Abbott said. “I am stepping down with great confidence in Dennis as Ivanti’s next CEO. He understands our customers’ desired business outcomes and has built a strong go-to-market model to consistently drive customer success.”