Palo Alto, F5 Alum to Lead Cloudflare Partners

Tom Evans has moved on from his position leading Palo Alto Networks' channel and will head up partner efforts at Cloudflare.

Cloudflare on Monday announced Tom Evans as its chief partner officer. Evans in a blog wrote that "partners are integral" to Cloudflare's goal of securing businesses and the internet.

"There are unique aspects to Cloudflare that I believe will be especially appealing as we grow this part of our business," Evans wrote.

Evans said former colleagues joined Cloudflare before him and gave rave reviews about the company culture. Evans also credited Cloudflare's edge computing and cybersecurity portfolio.

Cloudflare's Tom Evans

"As someone who is deeply passionate about pushing the boundaries of technology and driving innovation, joining a company like Cloudflare was a clear choice," he said. "I am eager to be part of a team that is at the forefront of technological advancements, constantly striving to make the Internet faster, safer and more reliable for its billions of users worldwide."

Who Is Tom Evans?

Evans had led Palo Alto's worldwide channel sales since 2022, and worldwide channel sales strategy prior to that. His six-and-a-half years at the cybersecurity provider saw him steadily move up the ranks from a director role.

Prior to Palo Alto, Evans was vice president of global channels and business development at K2.

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Evans started his tech career as an account manager at F5 Networks. After 10 years of work at F5, he finished there as senior director of channel sales and distribution.

Evans said he has been learning about partners' value since the beginning of his career.

"As an integral part of my success, I found myself crafting comprehensive sales strategies that aligned our partners' capabilities with my business objectives," Evans wrote. "I focused on developing value-driven partnerships that transcend a purely transactional mindset, which led me to a role managing partners and eventually leading channel sales and distribution teams."

Cloudflare Partners See Growth

The vendor announced last month that its channel revenue grew 174% over the previous two years.

The company gave shout-outs to several large systems integrators, VARs (including GuidePoint Security), MSPs (IBM spin-off Kyndryl) and distributors (TD Synnex). The company also last year named tech services distributor (TSD) Avant a top partner.