Industry Veteran Chris Bell has been recently appointed to spearhead Sophos’ focus on empowering partners and driving business growth.
Bell joined Sophos following its acquisition of Secureworks, where he served as chief strategy officer, responsible for long-term vision, strategic partnerships, corporate development and strategy.
With a career spanning more than two decades of working in the technology industry, including nearly a decade in cybersecurity and channel; Bell’s Sophos leadership will focus on developing and executing a channel strategy that prioritises expanding reach, empowering partners and driving growth.
“Partners need adaptable strategies that prioritize flexibility to stay ahead of the increasingly complex threat landscape,” said Bell. “Unifying Sophos’ and Secureworks’ portfolios presents a unique opportunity to accelerate a future-ready channel program that arms partners with the technology, services, insights, and enablement needed to protect customers and fuel long-term growth.”
Key priorities for Bell at Sophos include:
- Enhancing Sophos Partner Experience to make it seamless for partners to do business with Sophos, while streamlining operations.
- Continued Innovation for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) with Sophos
- Fueling Partner Growth with service delivery competencies, expanded partner enablement programs including personal-based training and fast-track training to expand partners cybersecurity expertise.
- Increasing Sophos’ market reach
- Expanding routes to market by bolstering Sophos’ presence across technology alliances, marketplaces and the cyber insurance ecosystem. Sophos will continue to maintain its focus across resellers, service providers, and OEM channels.
A core piece of Sophos’ channel strategy is to better equip partners in addressing the evolving security challenges faced by businesses of all sizes. By aligning more closely with partner needs and prioritising an open ecosystem, Sophos aims to create a stronger partner network that supports customers from strategy to technology and deployment.
“Evolving our channel business to consistently deliver excellent customer outcomes is at the core of our partner go-to-market approach,” said Torjus Gylstorff, chief revenue officer at Sophos. “We are thrilled to have Chris’ strategic vision and deep channel and cybersecurity expertise to shape Sophos’ channel strategy and build programs to empower partners to scale their security business.”
Following the acquisition of Secureworks, Sophos is the leading pure-play cybersecurity vendor of managed detection and response services, protecting more than 28,000 global customers. Sophos continues to strive to streamline partner operations through initiatives like Sophos Partner Care, a 24×7 team dedicated to providing quoting, licensing and general partner account support, and Sophos Customer Success, a single point of contact for maximising customer onboarding, retention and growth throughout the post-sales experience.
