Barracuda Networks Appoints New Channel Chief

**Editor’s Note: Click here to see which channel people were on the move in April.**

Ezra Hookano has returned to Barracuda Networks after a six-year absence to become the company’s new channel chief.

As vice president of channels, Hookano is responsible for leading Barracuda’s global channel strategy. He previously was Barracuda’s vice president of sales, growing the company from inception to more than $100 million in revenue, before leaving in 2010.

“From the time Barracuda first set out to solve email security challenges over a decade ago, channel partners have been integral to the company’s success,” he said. “Coming back to Barracuda and to work with the channel community that I helped develop is truly special. We’re in a new era of challenges, where customers are looking to solution providers to not only protect their organizations but also to further empower them with cloud and virtualization technologies that make business better. I look forward to helping our channel partners solve these challenges while growing their businesses with Barracuda solutions.”

In recent years, Hookano was vice president of channels for Exablox and vice president of worldwide channels for Fusion-io. He also launched the business division of Drobo.{ad}

Barracuda also appointed Hatem Naguib as senior vice president and general manager, security business. He previously was vice president of networking and security at VMware, where he was responsible for the product, technical marketing and business development teams of VMware NSX.

In his new role, Naguib has global responsibility for leading Barracuda’s security product strategy to simplify security management for IT professionals.

“Security is tasked with protecting businesses from major threats across every connected device, and doing so in a way that ensures network access and efficiency isn’t compromised,” Naguib said. “Barracuda is successfully solving these challenges today, and I see a great opportunity to leverage their experience, resources and talent to push innovation as a one-stop shop for customers looking to protect their users and assets – on-premises, in the cloud and in hybrid environments.”