Cohesity nabs Brian Higgins from VMware for Asia Pacific Japan channel chief

US data backup and management company Cohesity has nabbed VMware’s Asia Pacific and Japan commercial boss, Brian Higgins to run its channel in the region. 

Higgins replaces Les Mansour, who left last November, and has not listed a new role on his Linkedin.

Cohesity Asia-Pacific and Japan vice president Ravi Rajendran said “Brian has a proven track record in leading and enhancing channel go-to-market, strategic initiatives, and sales enablement throughout the Asia-Pacific and Japan region for a number of leading IT solutions providers.” 

“As organisations continue to adopt our next-gen data management offerings, Brian will play a key role in driving our go-to-market strategy through partners in the region while cultivating our partner ecosystem.” 

Higgins said, “Cohesity is already helping numerous organisations throughout the Asia-Pacific and Japan region radically simplify how they back up, secure, manage and derive value from data.”

“Our unique, next-gen approach to data management continues to provide a tremendous opportunity for our ecosystem partners to advance their businesses.”

“I am excited by the opportunity to work closely with our partners, as we jointly empower customers throughout the region to do more with their data.” 

Higgins worked as VMware's Asia Pacific and Japan director of commercial business for three years, beginning in 2018. 

Prior to VMware, he worked for a number of other technology and communications companies managing sales and partnerships, including Lawson Software, Computer Associates, Citrix Systems and Cognos Asia Pacific. 

Higgins studied finance, economics and business law at the San Diego-based University of Phoenix and computer science and systems programming at New York-based Chubb Institute. 

In May last year, Cohesity launched its backup as a service platform, DataProtect, in Australia and New Zealand.

Cohesity was recognised as a backup and recovery software leader by Gartner last year, winning bronze in the research firm’s 2021 Magic Quadrant award for vision.