US-based SonicWall, a leading network security company, has announced its record year-on-year growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region which was marked by the opening of three new offices in the region.

Buoyed by the success, the US-based company has also announced strategic new hires to drive additional regional growth.

The move demonstrates SonicWall’s strategic focus on the EMEA region, as well as the enterprise market, alongside its continuing commitment to the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market, it stated.

The new offices are located in Dubai (UAE), Basingstoke (UK) and Barcelona (Spain), said a statement from the company.

Following unprecedented EMEA growth, SonicWall now has a direct presence in 16 countries across the region including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

The success of the company’s EMEA business was in part due to new enterprise services announced during the fourth quarter, which include zero-touch and cloud deployment of SonicWall next generation firewalls, as well as secure SD-WAN which is now delivered alongside its firewall protection, it added.

Michael Berg, executive director sales for EMEA, SonicWall, said: "Our boosted presence across the region is part of a long-term plan, and proof of our determination and commitment to strengthen the company’s value proposition among our valued customers and partners within this exciting and rewarding market."

“By ensuring our channel expertise is always within easy reach and that we are committed to speaking local languages, we are better placed to understand and respond in a valuable way to our customers’ individual cybersecurity challenges,” he stated.

“In July, our company expanded its cooperation with the Middle Eastern and Eastern European markets after establishing direct relationships with local partners. The opening of the Dubai office this week is the next phase of our development in the Middle East and we continue to forge meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with regional channel partners directly,” he added.

On the new hires, SonicWall said its new Dach Enterprise Team is now headed by Michael Struss, who joined the company from Silent Circle earlier this year.

Struss has previously managed the Dach region for Entrust, said a company statement.

DACH region comprises Germany (D) and its neighbouring countries, Austria (A), and Switzerland (CH) which represent the largest community where German acts as the de-facto nationwide official language and is the first language of the vast majority of the people.

Jan Patrick Schlögell now leads SonicWall’s Dach Channel Team. Formerly with Sophos before joining (then) Dell SonicWall in 2015, he will be growing the Dach channel business by maintaining the value of the SonicWall offering to channel partners, it said.

To boost the UK operations, the company has roped in Helen Jackson as the regional sales director who will lead the development of strategic enterprise accounts.

Formerly head of sales for the transport, energy and public sectors, as well as channel director for the UK and Ireland at Nokia, Jackson brings valuable insight into the UK and Ireland markets.

The strategic partner team under the direction of Luca Taglioretti has also been strengthened with the appointment of Fabrizio Corradini, ex-channel manager at Cisco and EMC, who takes on the role of strategic partner manager for Southern Europe, leveraging the MSSP Go-To-Market and strategic partnership with top service providers and global system integrators.

Luc Eeckelaert is a 15-year channel veteran with many years of experience in IT security. He has held various senior channel sales positions at Utimaco Safeware, Trend Micro and SonicWall where he has been a regional sales director for several years.

Mario Pucciarelli is strategic partner manager in SonicWall for the Middle East, enabling Telecom Operators, MSSP and main system integrator to deliver SonicWall cybersecurity solutions to their end customers.

Prior to this, he developed a 20-year experience in top companies in ICT security domain Gemalto, HID Global and Idemia, covering Southern Europe and Middle East. Pucciarelli holds a Masters’ Degree in Aeronautical Engineering and an EMBA from Bologna Business School.

SonicWall said it was expecting double-digit growth as it continues to grow its partner base, which has increased by over 45 per cent since the company divested from Dell two years ago.- TradeArabia News Service