Ted Roller makes a planned exit as channel leader – part of the business model of his company Get Channeled – and Matt Scully joins from Datto as Mailprotector’s first in-house channel chief.
David Setzer, Mailprotector’s CEO
Greenville, S.C.-based cloud-based email security provider Mailprotector has announced their first permanent channel chief. Matt Scully has joined the company from Datto, where for the last five years, as a channel development manager, he talked and worked with MSPs at physical and virtual industry events.
Scully will replace Ted Roller, who has been acting, in essence, as an outsourced channel chief. Roller’s Get Channeled company works with clients to build a strong 100% channel model, putting the infrastructure in place, and enlisting a strong partner base. The model then has Roller hand off the channel to a permanent in-house channel chief. This is the first Get Channeled client to go through the complete lifecycle. Roller and Scully are working on a transition plan, and the handoff is scheduled to be completed in several weeks.
“We were Ted’s first client,” said David Setzer, Mailprotector’s CEO. “This is the end of the cycle. It’s gratifying for us to see us get to exactly what we planned. This is the natural progression of where we are in that growth cycle.”
Setzer said that the coronavirus notwithstanding, things were in place to make this a good time for Roller to pass the baton to Scully.
“We had got to the growth point where we did our Series A in February,” he said. “As well, with the pandemic, MSPs and partners need our product more now than ever, because in any time of chaos, bad guys see opportunity. None of this derailed our plans to bring a full-time channel chief in place.”
Setzer said they aren’t particularly worried about a negative reaction from partners with Roller leaving.
“We hope that partners know this was part of the plan from the beginning,” he said. “Matt has come from a channel-only organization. That was huge for us because we want someone whose DNA is partner only. We wanted somebody that could identify with the needs of the partner and articulate the partner’s point of view into our organization. Ted was great at that. and that was a top thing on our list – having someone who knows what it takes for partners to win.”
Matt Scully, Mailprotector’s new channel chief
“There s a lot of different things I want to do that can take us to that next level,” Scully said. “In my five years with Datto, I developed a good understanding of how to grow the partner base.”
He said that years of working booths at trade shows has equipped him well to communicate effectively with MSPs in these strange times, where for the time being, there are no trade shows.
“Working booths, you need to be able to adapt to any question,” he said. “Now we have to adapt, but we have always found different ways to communicate with our partners, and in these more uncertain times, we will still find ways to communicate.”
Ultimately, Scully said that what matters most is Mailprotector’s value proposition.
“MSPs want strong technology, they want to be able to make money on it,” he said. “When I got a look at the technology of Mailprotector and how MSPs could make money on it, coming here was an obvious answer for me. We are even more relevant in the COVID and post-COVID world, where companies are working from more locations, and from home. We are needed more than ever.”
