1. Could you introduce yourself and tell us about you? Your current / recent jobs and employers? Previous companies and jobs?
He is originally from Hong Kong but has lived mostly in Australia, has lived in Singapore as well. He has been in the cybersecurity industry for about 26 years now and has done lots of different things from technical to sales to channel, both on the partner and vendor side. He is currently with XXXX as a Channel Director, the company is a leader in cybersecurity training and certification space, and is the de facto standard for people in pentesting, red teaming, and all. He is overlooking the APAC partner business including Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Australian, and other countries. They have a direct business but roughly about 40-50% of their business is via channel; he is responsible for partner recruitment to make sure there’s enough coverage and the right partner mix of business in different parts of the region, he partners with their sales team, marketing team, and such.
Before this, he was with XXXX for about 9 months where he looked after their channel business for Australia and New Zealand; they were doing more of a product business and he looked over different types of partners such as distribution, global SIs, traditional resellers, and more. Prior to this, he was with XXXX as a Channel Director for APAC where he looked after their partner ecosystem for APAC, predominantly Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. He also worked with XXXX as a Strategic Account Director where he specialized in managed security services, pen testing, and security in general. He was there for about 4 years, looking after their largest customers in ANZ. Before that, he was with XXXX, a cybersecurity business, as the Director of Business Development where he led a team of cybersecurity professionals in managing all security requirements throughout the APAC region; he finished the FY0217 at 201% against his targets and built their cybersecurity business from the ground up. He was with XXXX for 8 years before that where he took up Account Manager and Sales roles; started off his career with Sales Engineering roles for XXXX, XXXX, and with XXXX as well.
His career summary would be from tech support moving to presales, then managed a support team, led a presales team, and went into sales, channel, and so on.
2. What skill(s) / experience would you self-describe as strongest or specialist in?
Strongest skill would be within channel partnership within cybersecurity companies since he has been in this industry for more than 20 years. Apart from that, he’s good with technical sales and has worked on channel partners himself including XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and so on. The last five years of his career, he has moved back to the vendor space but he still leverages his experience and knowledge working on the channel partner side and he considers that as one of his great distinction.
As a Sales person, he has consistently exceeded his number starting from his time with XXXX where he made it to the President’s Club, during his time with XXXX, he achieved 105% of his target of FY22 and about 150% of the FY23. In XXXX, he successfully transitioned 100% of their business through channel and laid out GTM strategies for FY2026.
3. Do you have the lists of key criteria’s according to the clients’ requirements?
He has been doing partnerships and alliances since his time with XXXX; even though his title are usually sales back then, he was still working with channel partners for 90-95% of the time. He has proven track record with partner management and development, executing GTM strategies, and bringing growth for global cybersecurity vendors; he has worked on mobile app security solutions especially during his time with Symantec (mobile security product), he worked with XXXX and XXXX as well where they had to sell mobile phones with security on Android and iOS platforms, and his experience in cybersecurity in general would be more than 20 years now.
He has worked with a lot of global system integrators ranging from the big four consulting to major telcos (British Telecom, Telstra, Singtel, Optus), and even IBM, DXC. He is directly involved in planning GTM with their partners, mostly consisting of revenue goals and activity such as joint marketing events, conference, and so on, depending on the region; they always expect for double digit growth on existing partners (generally 15-30% yearly) compared to new ones that sometimes need ramping up. Currently, they have an operation in Thailand and they tend to go there for about once or twice a year; he’d be open to work in this market if given the chance.
