US cloud communications vendor Twilio has stepped up its Australian presence by opening an office in Sydney and hiring its first regional country director.
Founded in 2008, Twilio is a platform-as-a-service that allows developers to build voice and messaging application using its web service APIs. The vendor started with a small team a year ago and expects to have eight staff based in Australia by next month.
Leading the Australian business is Richard Watson, former senior sales director of enterprise & channels at Symantec. Prior to joining Symantec in 2015, Watson held senior sales roles at Oracle from 2006 to 2015, and also held sales roles at Sun Microsystems, RSA and CSA Technologies.
Watson told CRN that Twilio is in talks with potential partners including global systems integrators, local integrators, resellers and development partners.
“We have had a fantastic amount of organic traction here in Australia, with leading companies including Atlassian, zipMoney, Dominos and Airtasker already building and scaling their applications using the Twilio platform," said Watson.
"This is a testament to the quality of Twilio’s product offering and also to the maturity of the Australian market. There is a strong culture of innovation here and IT leaders in Aussie enterprises recognise the opportunities that new technologies can offer their business.”
He added that Twilio is finalising its global program for go-to-market channels which would determine the number of partner tiers in its channel structure.
Twilio will be looking to hire roles in sales, customer success, service and support in both locations, but will focus first on recruiting a go-to-market team. The company is also preparing to open an office in Melbourne.