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Cato Networks, provider of the world’s leading single-vendor SASE platform has announced that Frank Rauch joins Cato as global channel chief. Rauch’s appointment headlines several channel leadership hirings and promotions meant to meet the growing channel demand for SASE and SSE.
As Global Channel Chief, Rauch will be responsible for driving the channel ecosystem globally, enabling partners everywhere to profit from the enterprise shift to cloud-native networking and security. With more than 30 years of leadership experience, Rauch has successfully led, developed, managed, and grown global partner ecosystems at Check Point, VMware, and HPE. He has also led field sales, inside sales and strategy organisations. He and his teams have been recognised with over 150 channel awards, and he has been personally recognised with 17 CRN Channel Chiefs awards, Lifetime Achievement award, and has been ranked consistently in the 50 Most Influential Executives.
“The cloud is the enterprise’s present and future, appliances are its past. Forward-thinking channel partners know their future lies in the cloud, but they need the right platform and technology partner to profit from the cloud,” said Rauch. “After doing my due diligence, I found Cato to be that partner. Cato’s, cloud-native SASE platform is unique in the industry, differentiating Cato’s channel partners from their competitors who are still focusing their business around appliances.”
“I’m excited to welcome Frank to the Cato team,” said Alon Alter, chief revenue officer of Cato Networks. “SASE is the future of enterprise networking and security. With the Cato SASE Cloud, partners can get to market quickly with new reoccurring revenue streams, delivering differentiated converged enterprise networking and security capabilities and value-added support services.”
As SASE and SSE have gained traction among enterprises, Cato has seen increased interest from service providers, such as Windstream Enterprise and KDDI, and other channel partners. To meet that need, Cato has further expanded its channel leadership team.
Robert Holley joins Cato as the AVP for VAR, resellers, and service providers, Americas. Holley has spent 20 years in the telecommunications, IT, and technology industries, building successful relationships and teams across sales and marketing, most recently at Versa Networks.
Shane Hallen has joined Cato as director of service provider sales, Americas. Before Cato, Hallen served as the strategic sales manager of service providers for Cisco Meraki. He will be focused on establishing partnerships with service providers in the Americas.
Paolo Maestripie has joined as director of service provider sales, EMEA. Maestripieri spent three years at ThousandEyes (now part of Cisco), where he led the alliances practice with global partners as the client partner director of service providers and global systems integrator. Before Thousand Eyes, Maestripieri served as the global alliances director of Orange for Zscaler for more than six years.
Rounding out the channel leadership team, Cato veterans Ron Hamlett and Mark Draper have been promoted from their positions as director of channel sales. Hamlett assumes the role of AVP, technology services distributors and agents where he’ll manage those relationships across the Americas. Draper will serve as AVP for channel sales within the EMEA region.
