INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS
Centrify appoints new EMEA
Channel Director
Centrify, the leader in securing hybrid enterprises
through the power of identity services, has
appointed John Andrews as its new EMEA
Channel Director. John, who reports to Vice
President and Managing Director for EMEA, Andy
Heather, will be responsible for setting out and
delivering on the company’s long-term channel
strategy and building a core set of distribution
partners and VARs across the region, including
the UK, DACH, Middle East, Northern Europe and
Southern Europe.
John, who joined from BeyondTrust, has spent the last 18 years helping to build a
channel presence and coverage in the Middle East and APAC markets for market-leading
security vendors, including Juniper Networks, F5 and McAfee. He also spent three years as
Marketing Director for Computerlinks Distribution, managing a portfolio of more than 25
security-focused vendors.
As Centrify continues to invest funds and resources into channel marketing, one of the first
jobs of the new Channel Director will be to evaluate 250+ partners and focus on establishing a
top 10 tier of VARs in each region. Centrify also plans to introduce an enhanced and improved
virtual training platform for partners. This will include a one-week boot-camp style delivery into
each region, with intensive training to bring partners up to speed on the company’s services
capabilities and encourage better cross-selling and customer support.
“We have built up a strong channel network across EMEA over the past few years, but now
is the time to assess these relationships to ensure our partners have the right skillset and product
alignment, and are committed to adding real value to our mutual customers,” commented John
Andrews. “We also want to ensure we are working with channel partners that can offer specialist
skills and routes into core vertical markets, including banking, retail and telcos.
“Our strength is the identity message, which plays into every part of the security sell, from
privileged access management and single sign on to multi-factor authentication and identity-as-
a-service (IaaS). My primary goal is to support our channel partners in delivering this message
to customers who are struggling to manage identity and access in today’s diverse environments,
incorporating hybrid cloud, mobile and data centre.”
Centrify, which appointed Exertis as its distribution partner in the UK two years ago following
the decision to move to a two-tier model, will visit distributors in each country to involve them
in the process and present the new corporate strategy and vision. Other distributors include
Infinigate in DACH and France, StarLink in the Middle East, and DCB in Benelux. ¢
Sage Middle East appoints new Regional Director
Sage has appointed Aaron White as the
new Regional Director for Sage Middle East.
White, who holds an MSc in Information
Systems from the University of Liverpool,
and has more than 20 years of industry
experience, joins Sage Middle East from
Hitachi Data Systems where he filled the
role of General Manager for the Middle
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East and Turkey, and was instrumental in
setting up operations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Egypt and Pakistan. Commenting on his
appointment, White said, “It is an exciting
time to join Sage Middle East with upcoming
changes such as the implementation of
VAT across the GCC region, regional policies
pivoting to investing and developing non-oil
Xerox names Pete
Peterson as global
channel strategy leader
Xerox has announced that Pete Peterson
will serve as Senior Vice President of Global
Channel Strategy. As the team lead, Peterson
will be responsible for revenue and profit
growth, as well as leading and executing
targeted investments across direct and indirect
channels worldwide.
Xerox is focused on enhancing and
expanding its channel reach, particularly in
the $20 billion multi-brand reseller space, by
providing partners a broader set of products,
solutions and vertically integrated tools,
technology and service delivery processes.
“Now that we support the largest solutions-
enabled portfolio in the industry, we’re able to
bring new opportunities to the partner channel
that serve small and medium businesses
(SMBs),” said Kevin Warren, chief commercial
officer, Xerox. “Pete is part of our investment in
that channel network – bringing to Xerox the
extensive experience required to ratchet up
recruitment and activation of partners that are
the right fit and growth potential to increase our
market share with SMBs.” ¢
sectors, and continued focus on localisation.
The IT solutions industry is going through a
transformation influenced by the changes in
the way we work, along with technological
developments. I look forward to expanding
Sage Middle East’s role in the region,
impacting on the organisation’s growth and
revenue, and continuing the great work my
predecessor did in promoting and building
our proposition in the market.” ¢
Issue 06
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS