Telstra taps McAfee and Fortinet channel talent for security expansion

Telstra has hired former channel chiefs Genevieve White and Jo Roberts as the newest members of its security services division.

White, who left her post as Fortinet’s Australian channel sales director in September, and Roberts, McAfee Australia’s former national channel account manager, will join the team led by Jacqui McNamara, Telstra’s head of security services.

White started her role this month as head of North, security specialist sales, cyber security, handling security services sales in New South Wales, Queensland and Northern Territory.

Roberts meanwhile joined the security services team in Telstra’s Victoria office.

Telstra's security services division assists businesses in identifying risks and vulnerabilities, and will help customers plan to avoid them and increase the businesses' cyber security.

McNamara confirmed that the hires are part of the telco’s ongoing recruitment drive in its cyber security division, which started in September.

“I'm so excited this week to have the amazing Genevieve White and Jo Roberts starting in my team,” McNamara said in a LinkedIn post.

“Even more exciting is that we have now hit 50 percent gender diversity although there's more work to do obviously in that space.”

She added that her team has improved with the gender diversity balance.

“The gender diversity balance in cyber is 11 percent women but I was keen to have my unfair share. That's how we create demand and fix the gender pay gap.”

Adding to Telstra's security hires over the past two years are Neil Campbell from Dimension Data in 2016 as director of security practice, while Thomas King was hired in January to lead the managed security services business