Sophos Appoints New Sales Leaders from Thales, Fortinet

Sophos hired two new sales executives, including Thales vet Torjus Gylstorff as chief revenue officer and Fortinet vet Jon Bove as senior vice president of Americas sales.

Sophos hired the new sales executives to further accelerate sales of its portfolio of cybersecurity services and products, including managed detection and response (MDR) services and endpoint, network, email and cloud security.

This week, Sophos announced it is acquiring Secureworks for $859 million. Sophos is backed by private-equity firm Thoma Bravo.

“With Torjus and Jon, both of whom have decades of experience in leading channel sales, managing sales operations and developing relationships with customers, we can scale faster and in a way that accelerates growth for partners, MSPs and Sophos,” said Joe Levy, Sophos’ CEO. “I’m excited to have Torjus and Jon on board to help drive the next phase of Sophos’ go to market evolution.”

New Sophos CRO

Gylstorff is responsible for driving revenue growth through leading Sophos’ global sales organization, and partner and customer networks. This includes expanding Sophos beyond its customer base of more than 600,000 organizations worldwide in the SMB market. 

Sohpos' Torjus Gylstorff

Gylstorff will also develop strategies to strengthen and drive additional business with existing and new MSPs. 

Related:Sophos Acquiring Secureworks From Dell for $859 Million

Prior to joining Sophos, Gylstorff was Thales’ head of worldwide sales. Prior to Thales, he was vice president of worldwide channels and alliances at Symantec.

And before that, Gylstorff led emerging business initiatives at Blue Coat Systems and managed major turnarounds in Japan and South Korea. His career also includes tenures at Norman Shark, IBM and Lotus Software, where he held various senior sales and leadership positions across Europe.

Bove Comes over from Fortinet

Sohpos' Jon Bove

In his new role, Bove is working with Sophos’ partner network in North America and Latin America to develop new revenue streams, and ensure partners and their customers can defend against ransomware, data breaches and other persistent cyberattacks. He will also direct and oversee the growth of new partners and MSPs in the region to increase sales of Sophos security solutions.

Most recently, Bove served as Fortinet’s vice president of sales for U.S. enterprise. In that role, he was responsible for driving revenue growth through channel sales in North America.

At Fortinet, he grew the SMB sales organization and defined the company’s channel sales strategy to expand focus on the enterprise market. He also previously held sales and channel leadership positions at Proofpoint.

Related:Sophos: Partners Poised to Benefit from Secureworks Acquisition

Priorities In New Roles

Channel partnerships are integral to the way Sophos operates, and fundamental to the value it provides to customers, Gylstorff said.

"Stepping into this role, a key priority for me is to engage with Sophos’ channel partners globally, ensuring that we continue to evolve and improve," he said. "I am a firm believer in Sophos' channel-first strategy, and I am eager to leverage my past experiences to reinforce this strategy, and to drive meaningful opportunities and benefits for our partner ecosystem.”

Bove said he's long admired Sophos’ "dedication to bringing solutions and services that speak directly to the needs of the SMB and midmarket segments."

"Sophos’ customer-first approach, combined with the chance to help our clients tackle complex challenges – from preventing ransomware attacks to securing remote work – excites me about this role and the potential for our shared success," he said. "I’m excited to provide our customers access to Sophos’ leading cybersecurity platform, which enables them to scale their security with best-in-class solutions – including endpoint, server, mobile, firewall, zero trust network access (ZTNA) and MDR.”

Sophos’s goal is to make it easy to do business with the channel, and as a channel-first company, Sophos has "continually strengthened its solutions, service offerings and partner program, and put partners at the forefront of its priorities, especially in its efforts to drive profitability and reduce friction for its partners," Bove said.

Related:Leveraging Partner Expertise to Build a Zero-Trust Strategy

"Looking ahead, we’ll continue to center partner feedback and challenges at the core of any changes to the program," he said. "In this new role, one of my first priorities is to meet with partners, and get a good understanding of their specific challenges and needs to help inform how we lean in even further. At Fortinet, I grew the SMB sales organization significantly and defined the company's channel sales strategy to expand focus, and this is something that I’m excited to carry into the next phase of my career."

The threat landscape is growing more complex day by day, especially in targeting the SMB market, Bove said.

"Partners are constantly challenged by the need to manage this complexity," he said. "It’s never before been more necessary for partners and customers to incorporate security tools and managed services into their plans to enable an always-on defensive strategy. Partners are also challenged by consolidation and ongoing talent skills gaps, which managed services are uniquely poised to address, as well as the need for better sales enablement resources, which Sophos will continue to build out within its partner program. "