Brendon Thwaites
Bitglass regional channel boss Brendon Thwaites has left the company after just over a year.
The former Palo Alto executive first joined the cloud security solutions provider as channels and alliance director for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) in November 2017.
He has now moved to cloud infrastructure management firm HashiCorp as field channel director for APJ. He was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
Bitglass APAC vice president Dave Shephard confirmed the move to ARN, but said the vendor would still remain 100 per cent channel.
Shephard added that while he was seeking someone to fill Thwaites shoes, he added that the role would not necessarily be a direct replacement.
“Brendon was hired to build our partner program and build our distribution network, which he has done already. What I’m now looking is a really good channel sales person.”
During Thwaites’ tenure, the vendor appointed Orca Tech as its first national distributor to coincide with the launch of its Altitude Partner Program.
In Australia, Bitglass’ headcount comprises of Shephard and Wayne Phillips, who joined as head of systems engineering for Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) a year ago alongside Thwaites. The vendor employs another three people across the APJ region and currently has an open headcount, Shephard added.
Thwaites’ departure coincides with Bitglass’ appointment of Jon Peppler as VP of worldwide channels.
Based in the US, Peppler will be responsible for leading Bitglass’ 200-strong network of channel partners across the Americas, EMEA and APJ.
He was previously a senior director for channel sales in the Americas at Menlo Security. During his 35-year IT career, he has held roles at Proofpoint, OpenText, Broadvision and IBM, where he first started out in 1984.
"I'm thrilled to be joining Bitglass during this period of rapid growth and accelerating cloud adoption around the world," he said. "As Bitglass continues to expand its operations globally, it represents the next wave of opportunity for the channel to engage in margin-rich, annually recurring business."
Shephard added that some of Thwaites' former duties would be overseen by Peppler.
Bitglass has also appointed Benjamin Rice as VP of worldwide business development to help enhance the company’s technology partnerships, such as API integrations.
Rice has held a variety of senior management positions at public companies such as Blue Coat Systems, as well as start-ups such as Egnyte and Ositis Software.
Their appointments follow Bitglass securing US$70 million in capital funding. The company said it is now looking to grow in the cloud access security broker (CASB) market.
