New Cato Channel Chief On Plans To ‘Amplify’ SASE Growth With Partners

Karl Soderlund, a cybersecurity channel veteran who has succeeded Frank Rauch as Cato’s channel chief, tells CRN that the vendor offers ‘scalability and flexibility like I've never seen before’ in SASE.

Cato Networks, a specialist in the fast-growing area of secure access service edge (SASE), is looking to “amplify” its efforts with solution and service provider partners following its shift in channel leadership, according to new Cato Global Channel Chief Karl Soderlund.

CRN reported last week that Soderlund — a longtime cybersecurity channel executive who formerly helmed partner programs at Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks — had been hired to head the Cato channel program. Soderlund succeeds channel veteran Frank Rauch, who has retired.

[Related: 10 SASE Companies Making Moves In 2024]

In an interview with CRN, Soderlund said that while he has previously worked at two of the top players in the SASE market, Cato has stood out to him with its SASE technology that offers “scalability and flexibility like I've never seen before.”

Last year, Cato was ranked as a “leader” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for single-vendor SASE platforms, along with Palo Alto Networks and Netskope.

For partners, Cato offers massive growth opportunities thanks to its position and momentum in the market, according to Soderlund. Starting off in the role, the primary goal is to “give partners just a lot of opportunities to grow and succeed” with Cato, he said.

Cato Networks is also reportedly eyeing an initial public offering, following its $238 million funding round at a valuation of more than $3 billion in 2023.

Soderlund had most recently served as senior vice president of worldwide partner and alliance sales at Zscaler from March 2023 to July 2024. Earlier, he had held key channel roles at Palo Alto Networks for nearly six years, including as its senior vice president of worldwide channel sales from 2018 until his departure in early 2023.

Rauch, meanwhile, told CRN last week that his retirement comes as the longtime channel leader looks to spend more time with his family.

Soderlund, who said he is a close friend of Rauch, said he looks forward to “taking what [Rauch has] built and taking it to the next level.”

What follows is an edited portion of CRN’s interview with Soderlund.

What led you to take the channel chief role at Cato?

I was able to do a lot of research — spoke to customers, spoke to partners — and everyone raved about this solution. And when I really dug into it, and looked at the momentum in the business, and the growth rates that are public — the customers tend to vote with their dollars. Where there's momentum, it continues to build. And when you look at SASE right now as a solution in a marketplace, there's huge demand. There's so much complexity in the IT environment right now. And if you can bring a solution to the table that'll actually solve [those] complex problems, that's a win.

Not only does Cato have a best-in-class solution for SASE, but they also understand the value of the partner community. There's a great baseline for me to build off of. What I plan on doing — which I've done in the past for other companies — is really take that baseline and amplify it. Enhance the go-to-market strategy, work closely with the teams, and give partners just a lot of opportunities to grow and succeed — and see the value of partnering with Cato.

When it comes to Cato’s technology, what are the differentiators that stand out to you?

I start with the customer, and then I work my way back to say, “What is the problem they're solving?” What Cato has, that is fairly unique, is more than 85 [points-of-presence] globally. So they're not leaning on third-party. This is really their technology and their PoPs. And every PoP has the exact same security stack. What's great about that is, think about how quickly you can turn on an environment or turn down an environment — or expand or decline. [Cato offers] scalability and flexibility like I've never seen before.

I've been around this industry for close to 30 years, and I kind of feel like I know what good looks like and where momentum is. The market is oversaturated with a lot of security solutions that are really feature sets more than technology that’s solving problems. [But Cato] is a holistic platform that really goes in and solves some of the most complex problems. For everything from a small enterprise to the largest Fortune 500 company, they have a solution. So right now, it's about go-to-market execution, it’s about amplification, and it's about growth. And that's what I'm hoping to do.

SASE has been a big trend in the market for a number of years, but do you still see this as an early opportunity?

If you think about it, SASE truly is a cloud-based solution where you're unifying the networking services and the security services. That's a pretty complex task. To have a really pure SASE solution, there's a lot of investment that needs to be made, and you really need to prove it out. And I think that's where Cato is, at this point right now — where they’ve crossed the chasm of proving out the technology. It's really about growth and amplifying and getting their name out there.

Because there’s momentum right now in SASE, a lot of the manufacturers out there claim to offer SASE, but they only really do portions of it. Or some portions of it are really sub-par. Partners are going to go in and do their own evaluations. And it's going to differentiate Cato from the marketplace moving forward.

Would you have a few thoughts to share on your predecessor, Frank Rauch?

I’m close friends with Frank. I’ve known him for over 20 years, and I think really highly of him. He's done a tremendous amount to help the channel presence in multiple different aspects of our industry. He's got a lot to be proud of. So I'm honored to be coming behind him and filling his shoes — and taking what he's built and taking it to the next level.