Margrith Appleby (Kaspersky Lab)
Margrith Appleby has been appointed as general manager of Kaspersky Lab across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ), returning to the channel a year after leaving Lenovo.
ARN can reveal that the industry veteran will replace Anastasia Rae in the role, who exits the security after 12 months.
In assuming responsibility for the trans-Tasman business, Appleby will be tasked with driving sales locally, working alongside partners to secure growth across enterprise and B2B markets.
“It has always been about our partners,” Kaspersky Lab managing director of Asia Pacific, Stephan Neumeier, told ARN.
“With Margrith’s strong suite in enterprise and the channel, we look forward to innovating with partners and growing in business together.”
Appleby joins the business 13 months after stepping down from her role as channel director of Lenovo across A/NZ, during a period in which she injected a "renewed dedication” to the vendor’s channel program locally.
Prior to Lenovo, Appleby spent three decades at HP, where she led the commercial channel sales business for printing and personal systems.
Appleby replaces Rae in the role, who initially joined Kaspersky Lab from Datacom in May 2017, as revealed by ARN.
“I would like to thank Anastasia for her dedication over the past year to develop Kaspersky Lab in the A/NZ markets,” Neumeier added.
“Under her leadership, she brought back the tangible business to consumers in Australia and we saw significant growth in our digital business in 2017.”
According to Neumeier, Rae also played a “pivotal role” in executing a partners in cyber safety campaign with Crime Stoppers, which was recently unveiled during the Melbourne Grand Prix circuit.
The local hire comes four months after Kaspersky Lab appointed Naina Parhar as head of channel sales across Asia Pacific, as the cyber security vendor builds out partner capabilities across the region.
As reported by ARN, Parhar is responsible for bolstering the company’s distribution framework, alongside taking control of Kaspersky Lab’s new telesales business, central to SMB growth ambitions in 2018.
In working closely with local teams across APAC, Parhar is also charged with rolling out the vendor’s new global partner program for the region.
