Fortinet Taps D&H To Drive SMB-Midmarket Cybersecurity Sales Growth

‘We’re looking to take more market share—not share shift—net- new business,’ says Fortinet Executive Vice President of U.S. Sales Trevor Pagliara. ‘D&H has a really good team of people, and we’re going to go after it in a big way.’

Fast-growing cybersecurity provider Fortinet is aiming to take a bigger share of the SMB and midmarket with a new partnership with D&H Distributing.

The breakthrough deal brings the entire Fortinet security product set into the D&H portfolio as the distributor continues to provide more advanced solutions, including recently adding Dell Technologies to its line card.

Trevor Pagliara (pictured), executive vice president of U.S. sales at Fortinet, told CRN he is looking forward to driving SMB and midmarket enterprise share gains with the D&H partnership.

“We’re looking to take more market share—not share shift—net- new business,” said the ultra-competitive Pagliara, who is leading the channel sales offensive. “D&H has a really good team of people, and we’re going to go after it in a big way.”

Fortinet, one of the dominant firewall and SD-WAN vendors in the channel, has a full line of unified Security Fabric offerings that include managed detection and response (MDR), endpoint detection and response (EDR) and secure access service edge (SASE) with its next-generation FortiSASE offering.

The partnership comes with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Fortinet, which grew its sales by 14 percent to $1.72 billion in its third fiscal quarter of 2025, making additional channel investments to drive continued growth.

Pagliara just hired Paige Powers, a 28-year channel veteran who was most recently senior director of Americas distribution sales for HPE Juniper Networks, as Fortinet’s new vice president of U.S. distribution sales.

Pagliara said he sees a massive opportunity for growth in the SMB market. “We could be getting hundreds of millions of dollars more in new business,” he said. “There is close to 1 million accounts in the SMB world.”

Pagliara said he was impressed by the aggressive D&H SMB sales “machine” fueled by the leadership of D&H Co-Presidents Dan and Michael Schwab.

“They are a $7-plus billion disty that wanted to partner with Fortinet, and I said, ‘Game on. Let’s go,’ said Pagliara. “We have got a very aggressive plan to drive great revenue goals in 2026. Both parties are investing and making very strong commitments. There is meat on the bone from both sides.”

Dan Schwab, for his part, said the landmark agreement provides more cybersecurity muscle for partners as D&H moves to help more of its MSPs transform into MSSPs.

“Adding Fortinet to our solution set is going to add fuel to our cybersecurity engine,” he said. “Fortinet was the No. 1 target for us to add to our portfolio. They play from SMB to the enterprise. We believe we can really help them get deeper reach in the partner base.”

D&H said it is launching what it called an “exclusive enablement program named FWD [Forward]” tailored to help partners “master and monetize” Fortinet’s advanced security technologies.

The FWD initiative includes structured training and certification paths for the Fortinet portfolio, hands-on technical workshops on FortiGate deployment, secure networking and other core technologies.

Furthermore, Harrisburg, Pa.-based D&H said it is providing direct access to a team of specialized solution architects for presales consultation, solution design and technical support.

Rick Grinstead, managing partner at Dayton Cincinnati Technology Services (DCTS), a Cincinnati-based technology services and solution provider, said he sees the D&H-Fortinet partnership as a game-changer. “Our goal is to sell $500,000 to $1 million in Fortinet EDR and MDR over the next year,” he said.

Grinstead said every school district needs to look at adopting MDR in the wake of the rise in cyberattacks. “Every school should have managed MDR,” he said. “They don’t have the experts that can tell the difference between certain security issues. Also, when the hackers come and attack it is usually on the weekends or on a holiday. So you need something that can monitor and react 7x24.”

Grinstead singled out D&H Vice President of Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies Colin Blair and Director of Modern Security and Managed Services Ryan Flynn for helping partners get up to speed in the fast-moving cybersecurity market.

Grinstead said he sees D&H’s personal commitment at every level of the company to help partners succeed as a differentiator. “It is a culture of helping partners that starts at the top with Dan and Michael and runs through the rest of the organization,” he said. “They are there to help you.”

D.J. Hansen, senior vice president of sales for cb20, a Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based MSSP and perennial CRN Triple Crown winner, said he was thrilled Fortinet has added D&H because of the hands-on, personal care that the distributor brings to partners like cb20.

“One of the things that is lacking in the industry is the real personalization that D&H brings to us as a partner,” he said. “D&H is much more focused on the business outcome of their partners. If I call D&H, they pick up the phone. Fortinet expanding into D&H gives them a deeper reach into partners like us. That personal touch is the reason we do business with D&H. They bring everything else along with it: They are innovative with their programs; they have the right engineers and expertise. There is just another level of operational excellence with them.”

Hansen said he sees 2026 as another double-digit sales growth year for the full Fortinet security and networking portfolio. “We love the Fortinet Security Fabric,” he said. “It’s a unified platform and solution. It is not just firewalls and security. It is switching, wireless access. The entire portfolio approach is why we love Fortinet.”