Kaspersky Lab Appoints New U.S. Channel Chief

Capone will report to Nancy Reynolds, Kaspersky Lab Americas senior vice president of corporate sales, who came on board the Moscow-based company last month after a six-month stint at Dell, where she helped develop the company's large enterprise global channel strategy.

Before joining Kaspersky, Capone led channel market strategy as the vice president of business development at Barlo Vision. Prior to her tenure at Barlo, Capone directed North America channel sales at Macromedia, where she led both U.S. and Canadian tier 1 and tier 2 channel teams.

At Kaspersky Lab, Capone will oversee and direct Kaspersky's Green Team Partner Program in both the U.S. and Canada, managing all sales activity for North American VARs and distributors.

"2010 is a big year for us," Capone said. "It's really all about optimization and demand generation and enablement to bring infrastructure to the partners."

That infrastructure would likely come in the form of training, rewards, increased revenue opportunities and enhancements to its Green Team Partner Program, some of which will be unveiled at the company's partner conference next week in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Capone said.

Going forward, Capone echoed Reynolds' previous sentiments that marketing is one of the top channel priorities, and said that there were plans in the works to drive and expand marketing efforts in the U.S.

"We recognize that we have an opportunity with marketing and branding. They're top priority at Kaspersky," she said. "We want to be a household name. We want that brand name recognition and we're working closer and closer toward that."

Both Capone and Reynolds said that the company would also likely be carefully looking into creative financing programs, along with enhanced training and incentive programs, while its channel is still feeling the effects of the global economic recession.

"I think I can say we would have to look at that. We are coming off a tough year. We saw a lot of cutbacks in the channel," she said. "(Kaspersky has) stayed very committed to supporting our partners. That was a big appeal to me."

Additionally, Capone said that a nearer term goal would be to beef up the U.S.-based channel program and recruit mid-market and enterprise VARs as the company continued its push into those markets. However, she added that the company would go for quality over quantity in terms of channel recruitment, looking to fill certain geographic regions with the right mix of expertise.

"We have some big hairy audacious goals. And we've got some marks to hit," she said. "As we try to go midmarket, finding the right partners to help us go to market is going to be key."