Kaspersky Lab introduces former Juniper Network channel executive John Murdock as its new vice president of North American channel sales.
New Kaspersky North America channel chief John Murdock
Kaspersky Lab North America has introduced John Murdock as its new channel chief.
Murdock joins Kaspersky to lead the security vendor’s channel sales in North America, a move that was predicted when the company promoted former channel chief and then sales boss Chris Doggett to the title of managing director for North America in April.
“Security now in the enterprise is more important than ever, ad I see the opportunity here at Kaspersky as a 100 per cent channel company that’s partner-led and partner-directed,” Murdock told ChannelBuzz.ca Tuesday afternoon, his second day in his new role. “There’s a huge opportunity for our partners to grow their business and service their customers. I’m looking forward to getting and going and driving some growth.”
Murdock joins the company from a channel-facing role at Juniper Networks, where he spent seven years in a variety of channel leadership roles, both on the North American stage and worldwide. Prior to joining Juniper, Murdock cut his teeth in the channel with a variety of jobs at VARs, experience which he says will prove helpful in his new role.
In the very early days of the new job, Murdock said his number-one goal is to get out in front of the company’s partners and start having conversations.
“I don’t have it all sorted out yet. I’d like to spend the next number of weeks and months talking to partners, seeing what they see in their markets as far as opportunities as well as needs,” he said. “I have some thoughts on where I think we can grow, both territory-wise and specific customer segments we can go after, but I need some partner conversations to sort it all out and make it a strategy.”
Murdock joins a Kaspersky North America organization that has seen its face change considerably over the last six months, with the departure of longtime North American president Steve Orenberg and the ascension of Doggett to the new managing director role. He also joins at a time when Kaspersky’s company-wide push to expand from its anti-malware roots to be more of a full-service security company has kicked into high gear with the continuing development of Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, and the move into more industry-specific security technologies.
“We’ve got an amazing base to build on here, and a really good channel program. We need to continue to be partner-led and grow our business with our partners. They’re the ones closest to the customers, and they understand the big challenges,” he said. “We want to build around that. We’ll work closely with partners who are interested in growing their business, and continue strive to be the most profitable brand they have in their portfolio.”
