Sophos has named former Novell executive Steve Hale as its new global channel chief.
Hale, who now holds the position of vice president of global channels at Sophos, will he will be based in Seattle, Washington -- near Sophos' Vancouver B.C. Canada office -- and will be reporting to Mike McGuinness, senior vice president of worldwide sales and field operations.
Hale came on board U.K.-based Sophos from Novell, where he held the position of vice president of global channel sales in the security, systems management and operating platform group, specializing in driving Novell's "Workload IQ" partner sales and delivery approach to the Intelligent Workload Management marketplace, according to Hale's LinkedIn page.
Prior to that, Hale served a one-and-a-half-year stint as vice president of North American channel sales at F5 Networks, where he oversaw channel revenue delivered through distribution, VAR, service providers, systems integrator and alliance partnerships.
Hale also held the position of general manager of the U.S. enterprise partner group at Microsoft.
“I’ve seen Sophos gain impressive market share over the years, aligning its product and company strategy to meet true market needs, including shifting to a pure channel program to maximize market reach to help grow the business," Hale said in a statement. "Sophos is at a very exciting place right now and driving a clearly defined, flexible global partner engagement strategy with our field and executive leadership teams and the Sophos Partner Channel is my charter -- I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to amplify an already exciting business and revenue opportunity for Sophos Partners."
Sophos said it officially plans to announce his appointment May 24.
Meanwhile, the Sophos executive shift comes amid company transition. Sophos recently acquired network security firm Astaro Networks and stated plans to enter the unified threat management appliance space.
Sophos also announced plans to enter the mobile and cloud security arenas, putting the company more on par with competitors Symantec and Trend Micro .
