LogRhythm has made a key hire in its quest to move towards the channel, introducing former Kaspersky Lab, Trend Micro, and Dell channel executive Nancy Reynolds as its new vice president of Americas channels.

The growing security information and event management (SIEM) vendor started out as a direct vendor, but Reynolds said the company, from the C-suite on down, has “made a strategic decision to move from direct to indirect.” She said her initial assessment is that the company has made good early steps towards partner enablement in North America, and is also starting to build its channel in Latin America.

“The culture we have here is quite unique – even customer-facing people recognize the power of the channel to add reach, credibility, and velocity,” Reynolds said of her new employer. “The intensity and passion is there to move to 100 percent channel. Partners are an integral part of our new go-to-market.”

Job one for Reynolds is revamping the company’s partner program – something she aims to have done by the end of 2013. That program will focus on better training and enabling the company’s channel base, working to make partners “smarter than” (their competitors, other vendors, etc.) Reynolds said. At the same time, she’ll be looking to increase the staff behind the new channel program, giving partners more resources within the company.

“We’ve got to build the fundamentals, recruit the best partners, have integrity throughout the program, and have the best people on board to put in front of our partners,” Reynolds said. “That will let us both take care of our mutual customers and stay ahead of the bad guys in security.”

Reynolds said the company’s channel in North America is about “half built up,” and she prioritizes expanding the business of existing partners. On the other hand, “we know that we don’t have coverage and capability throughout North America,” meaning that recruiting the right partners will be very important.

The ideal new channel partner for Reynolds is one that can truly talk the talk through the experience of building an existing security practice, who has a high sales-to-SE ratio, and is willing to commit to LogRhythm as their number one or number two vendor in the SIEM and networking monitoring/analysis/forensics category. In return, Reynolds offers the kind of no-nonsense approach to channel management for which she’s well known, particularly from her time with Kaspersky.

“We’ll help them grow their business. I need to show existing and future partners the path to profitability, the ability to add customers, keep current customers, and make more money. Those are key tenets for any partner,” she said.

Reynolds said the company’s alliance partners are one key differentiator in its bid to build its channel. The company has forged alliances with a number of important players, particularly in the realm of the next-generation firewall, with names like FireEye, Palo Alto Networks, and Sourcefire (recently acquired by Cisco Systems) all on board. Those partnerships, Reynolds said, both provide avenues to meet new partners, and make LogRhythm “stickier” to partners who are focused on broader security solutions.