New McAfee channel chief gets commercial

Gavin Struthers has been appointed McAfee’s new global channel chief following the resignation and departure of Alex Thurber to business security software maker Tripwire, and the new top dog is already promising new initiatives for partners. 

Struthers began his role as senior vice president of worldwide channel operations yesterday. He will continue in his current position as Asia Pacific channels and operations director for the next six weeks while the company hunts for a replacement. 

Throughout his ten year tenure at McAfee, Struthers focused on Australia and New Zealand before most recently running the APAC operation. He has overseen such channel initiatives as the 2011 launch of the SMB-focused partner acceleration resource centre, deal registration program, and SMB specialisation.

The company recruited over 350 partners in the SMB specialisation in APAC over the last year, and Struthers said it is a market that will remain a focus through 2012.

McAfee will, however, increase its focus on its commercial enterprise operations over the coming year, thanks to growth of over 20 percent during the last 12 months.

It responded by investing in staff, adding around five territory account managers to the region for commercial partners, and in 2012 will launch a Continuing Education program designed to rid its recertification program of inflexibility and unnecessary work for partners.

“One of the challenges for resellers is every year they have to redo their certification to remain certified as a McAfee elite or premier partner,” Struthers told CRN. “We are bringing to market additional courses and activities that give partners the ability to earn their certifications without doing the same courses. We also have credits for attendance and certain activities; so if they attend our visual sales kickoff, if they participate in specific events, we give them credits towards continuing education.”

McAfee will similarly add to its existing McAfee Ace program, which offers hands-on technology training for partners, with additional margins under a McAfee Value Program. Struthers said the margins would be incremental but had not yet been finalised. 

Thurber departed the company on Friday to become vice president of sales at Tripwire, a decision he told CRN US was primarily personal. Thurber previously held positions at Cisco covering Japanese and later global channels.